Adams County woman pleads guilty in child abuse case, faces five-year term
Tien Lynn Hawkins admitted three felonies in Adams County Common Pleas Court, moving the child abuse case to sentencing on a jointly recommended five-year prison term.
Tien Lynn Hawkins has admitted to three felonies in Adams County Common Pleas Court, ending the case’s path to trial and putting a jointly recommended five-year prison term in front of Judge Brett Spencer. Her plea shifts the focus from guilt to punishment, and the final decision now rests with the court.
Hawkins withdrew her previous not-guilty plea and pleaded guilty to Count 3, child endangering, and Counts 5 and 7, both permitting child abuse. All three offenses are third-degree felonies. In exchange, the remaining counts, 1, 2, 4, 6 and 8, are to be dismissed with prejudice, removing those charges from further prosecution.
The plea paperwork calls for a five-year prison term made up of 30 months on Count 3 consecutive to 30 months on Count 5, with Count 7 running concurrently. Under Ohio law, third-degree felonies carry a prison range of nine to 36 months, and the filing also leaves room for arguments over penalties, fines and forfeiture. That means Hawkins has accepted responsibility on the record, but Spencer still controls the sentence that will be imposed.
The case reached this point after a year of intense attention in Adams County. Hawkins and Brian Moser, also identified as Terry Smith III, were arrested and jailed on child-endangerment charges after the death of a two-year-old child in June 2025. A grand jury later alleged that Hawkins permitted repeated abuse between April 1 and July 2, 2025, causing the child’s death and substantial harm to other minors in the household.
Moser’s case moved faster to judgment. He pleaded guilty earlier in 2026 and was sentenced March 24 to a total prison term of 17 to 22 and a half years. Prosecutor Aaron Haslam said in March that the child’s death was not considered an accident, and Spencer said at sentencing that Moser showed little remorse. Hawkins’s plea now leaves Adams County residents with one central question still unresolved: how closely the court will follow the recommended five-year term when it sets her sentence.
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