PHOENIX (CBS5) -
A judge has sentenced Tammi Smith to 30 days in jail and three years of supervised probation for forgery and conspiracy to commit custodial interference in the Baby Gabriel case.
The would-be adoptive mother of an Arizona baby missing for more than two years made a last plea before a judge at her sentencing hearing in Phoenix.
Smith, 40, said she's never been able to tell the "true story" of what happened because she said she's never been allowed that chance.
Smith addressed the judge for about thirteen minutes. Much of her statement centered around her Christian faith. Near the ten minute mark Smith apologized, but not necessarily for her actions.
"I never intended to hurt anybody. I intended to help people and I'm sorry for the pain it caused the McQueary family, the Johnson family and even the Smith family," Smith told the judge.
Smith's attorney asked the judge for three years probation and 80 hours of community service.
"I'm asking that you look deep in your heart. I don't envy you having to make this decision, but I am asking you to look deep in your heart and make the right decision, and that would be to allow my wife to go home with me today," Smith's husband, Jack Smith, told the judge in court on Friday.
Smith could have faced one to seven and a half years in prison stemming from her May conviction of forgery and conspiracy to commit custodial interference.
Prosecutors wanted Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Joseph Kreamer to consider the crimes separately, which would mean mandatory prison time.
Instead, Kreamer determined the acts were part of the same criminal objective and therefore, Smith is eligible for probation.
The judge said Friday that Smith does not deserve prison based on the offenses and her lack of a criminal record.
The missing boy's father, Logan McQueary, was not present. However, his father, Frank McQueary, was in the courtroom and went before the judge prior to the sentencing.
"We still don't know where Gabriel is," Frank McQueary said. "We fear the worst, and we fear that we will never see him again, and part of the reason is because of what Tammi Smith did."
Frank McQueary went on to say, "She set out to take this baby from our family, so as far as our future with Gabriel - there isn't one."
"If she goes to jail and she is removed from her family for a while, maybe she will feel what our family is going through," he said.
Logan McQueary spoke with CBS 5 News after the sentencing and said he believed it was a fair sentence.
After the hearing Frank McQueary expressed disappointment in the sentencing.
"Do I think she's sorry for what she did? I think that she's sorry that she got convicted. I think she's sorry she got caught. I don't think that she's sorry that she tried to take Logan's rights away to the child," said the baby's Grandfather.
Prosecutors painted the 40-year-old Smith as an "obsessed" woman who would stop at nothing to win custody of the boy. Defense attorneys said she was just looking out for the child and his mother.
Gabriel was 8 months old when he was last seen in December 2009 in San Antonio.
The boy's mother, Elizabeth Johnson, had said she killed Gabriel and dumped him in a trash bin, but later recanted and said she gave the baby to a couple in San Antonio. She remains in jail.
Stay with cbs5az.com and CBS 5 News for updates on this developing story.
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Tammi Peters Smith in the courtroom for her sentencing Friday.
