By Rummana Hussain
Chicago Sun Times
CHICAGO — Wiping her tears, Johanna Vera told a Cook County judge Tuesday she was ready to go to prison so she could start counting the days she’d be released and see the two young sons she poisoned.
“I’m tired of being here,” Vera said of her numerous court appearances since her arrest in 2007.
“I want to go there [prison] and study and see how fast I can get out of there.”
But Judge Mary Margaret Brosnahan warned Vera that while she will receive credit for the two years she spent in Cook County Jail awaiting trial, she must complete 85 percent of her remaining 8?- year prison sentence.
“I am really sorry,” Vera, 25, said in Spanish as she pleaded guilty to two counts of attempted murder. “I really love my children.”
Distraught that her boyfriend left her, Vera laced her sons’ orange juice with rat poison, boric acid, Tylenol and Motrin on Nov. 29, 2007, Assistant State’s Attorney Sabra Ebersole said. Vera also drank the deadly cocktail from a tumbler officers found at her home, in the 5000 block of West Henderson. Vera later texted her boyfriend and admitted she did something “crazy,” Ebersole said.
Vera’s boys were 10 months old and 3 at the time. The younger child was fathered by the man who had ended the relationship with Vera.
Even after Vera leaves prison, she no longer will have custody of her children, Vera’s attorney, Michael Bianucci, said.
“I know I will not get them back, but at least I’ll get to see them,” Vera said.
Copyright 2010 Chicago Sun-Times, Inc.