Kidnapper Ann Pettway jailed in 1987 snatching of Carlina White

A woman who kidnapped a newborn from a Manhattan hospital more than 25 years ago and raised the child as her own has been sentenced to 12 years in prison.

Ann Pettway of Raleigh, NC, pleaded guilty to the 1987 abduction in February, The New York Times reported.

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She nodded her head repeatedly as a federal judge handed down the sentence in a Manhattan courtroom packed with her friends and family as well as the real parents of Carlina White, who was stolen from Harlem Hospital when she was only 19 days old, according to The Associated Press.

Pettway admitted to taking a train from her Connecticut home to the hospital, posing as a nurse and kidnapping White after the girl's worried parents had brought her to the emergency room with a high fever.

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“I am here today to right my wrong and ask for forgiveness," she said in terse remarks to court.

White's parents, Joy White and Carl Tyson, made emotional pleas for a long jail sentence. They separated one year after their daughter disappeared.

“For 23 years, Ann, you had me suffering," Tyson said. “What you should get is 23 years, what you took away from me.”

White is now 25 and lives in Atlanta, but was brought up in Connecticut under the name Nejdra Nance. She became suspicious and discovered her identity in December 2010 while browsing the website of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, Sky News reported.

The family was reunited in January 2011.