Black grandmother Sylvenie Thessier gets three years for setting girl ablaze in demon-casting voodoo ritual

The voodoo grandmother who stood by while her 6-year-old granddaughter was set ablaze in a bizarre demon-casting ritual has been sentenced to three years in prison. Sylvenie Thessier was led from a Queens courtroom in tears after Justice Richard Buchter scolded her for not getting Frantzcia Saintil medical attention. Thessier, 71, pleaded guilty to reckless endangerment for the June 2009 incident. The child's mother poured rum over her head and lit her on fire to drive out evil spirits - and Thessier only doused her with water and put her to sleep, prosecutors said. Thessier, a native of Haiti, admitted that she was negligent. "But I didn't do it on purpose," she said. Her daugther, Marie Lauradin, is set to go to trial on assault and child endangerment charges in June 2011.