Former foster mom pleads guilty to child endangerment, rape count dismissed

A former foster parent was ordered Friday to serve three years on probation after she pleaded guilty to lesser charges in a case in which, police say, she had sex with her foster son more than 500 times.

Joelle M. Barozzini, 50, of Greensburg told a Westmoreland County judge it was in her best interest to plead guilty to misdemeanor counts of corruption of a minor and child endangerment. Prosecutors dismissed felony charges of rape, institutional sexual assault and sexual assault.

“Joelle Barozzini has always maintained her innocence of the serious felony charges which have been resolved today and she continues to do so,” defense lawyers Bill McCabe and Richard Galloway said in a statement. “This was a best interest plea based not on an admission of guilt but on her choice to avoid the risk, however slight, of being convicted by an always unpredictable jury of far more serious felony charges and possibly receiving a lengthy sentence of incarceration.”

Barozzini’s attorneys also said the plea deal shields her three children from negative publicity a trial would have generated.

Greensburg police in 2017 charged Barozzini after receiving a Child Line report that alleged she had repeated and long-term sexual contact with a then 16-year-old boy she took into her home in 2009. At the time, she worked for Pressley Ridge in Uniontown as a supervisor of the agency’s foster care program.

According to court records, the teen claimed Barozzini repeatedly forced him to have sex, sometimes on a daily basis and with her husband and children elsewhere in the home until he left her care in 2013.

Assistant District Attorney Jim Lazar said the plea deal was necessary based on evidentiary problems, including the death of the lead detective in the case as well as the criminal conviction in May of Barozzini’s accuser.

“This plea does not get us everything we wanted, but it did involve her acceptance of responsibility,” Lazar said.

In May, Barozzini’s now 27-year-old accuser pleaded guilty to child endangerment and assault charges based on allegations that in 2016 he gave his live-in girlfriend’s 2-year-old son a date rape drug and assaulted the child when his mother left the them in their Derry home.

Judge Christopher Feliciani on Friday sentenced Barozzini to serve three years on probation and to have no contact with juveniles who are not her biological children.

Lazar said the plea deal will prevent Barozzini from again serving as a foster parent. Barozzini recently received a doctorate in business management and was recently hired to a marketing job for a private company, McCabe said.

“He (Barozzini’s accuser) was pleased she was willing to take some level of responsibility,” Lazar said.