Idaho mother pleads guilty to three felonies for covering up her son’s death
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Alex Brizee, Idaho Statesman
BOISE (Idaho Statesman) — The mother of a newborn pleaded guilty to several felonies Thursday related to the accidental suffocation of her 12-day-old son.
Allysen Armenta, 28, and the boy’s father, Brian Lemke, 32, were arrested late last year over allegations that they covered up the circumstances of their son Benjamin’s death. The couple have prior convictions for child abuse and had lost custody of children before, the Idaho Statesman previously reported.
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On Thursday, Armenta pleaded guilty through an Alford plea to three felonies: injury to a child and two counts of destruction of evidence.
An Alford plea carries the same weight as a guilty plea, but the defendant does not admit guilt, only that there’s enough evidence to convict them. Her sentencing has been scheduled for 9:30 a.m. Nov. 3 at the Canyon County Courthouse. She could face up to 20 years in prison.
As part of a plea deal, Lemke in April pleaded guilty to two charges: failure to notify or delay notification of a death and destruction of evidence. He was sentenced to a maximum of 15 years in prison, with the possibility of parole after six years.
Canyon County Deputy Prosecutor Kara Przybos called the child’s death a “tragic accident,” but “predictable” because of the couple’s living conditions, according to the prior reporting. Armenta and Lemke had been co-sleeping with their son in December 2025 when they woke up and found him dead, according to the Prosecutor’s Office.
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Instead of immediately calling law enforcement, Canyon County Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Virginia Ann Bond said, the couple decided to have Armenta, who had a warrant out for her arrest from a prior injury to child case, stay in the trailer. Meanwhile, Lemke took the infant into the main house on the property, which belonged to a friend, and placed his son into a bassinet before calling 911.
On Thursday, Bond called the trailer where the couple had been living with the infant “an uninhabitable situation.”
“They destroyed the original crime scene by removing him,” Bond said in court, “… and they made a new crime scene by placing him in a bassinet in that residence, where none of this happened.”