DA: Nanny crammed wipe into kid’s throat

A Manhattan nanny accused of trying to kill an infant in her care by plugging his windpipe with a baby wipe is the only person who could have put him in the near-fatal situation, prosecutors said Friday.

Marianne Benjamin Williams, 46, was alone in the Waterside Plaza apartment with little Maxwell and his then-14-month-old sister May 18, 2017, Assistant District Attorney Kristen Caruso told jurors in her opening statement at the attempted murder trial.

The only other possible suspect would be Maxwell’s sister — but she simply didn’t have the physical ability to carry out such an act, she said.

“She didn’t have the dexterity … to roll up the baby wipe and get it into the condition in which it was recovered from his throat,” she said. An FDNY paramedic, one of the first witnesses, described the terrifying scene as he arrived to the East Side building to find little Maxwell nearly slipping away. “I saw a blue, limp, pale, barely breathing baby,” said Timothy Anson, the emergency responder. Even more alarming was the near silence. “A crying baby means the airway is good,” he explained. “They’re alive, they’re healthy. This baby was not crying … it was more like a dull whimper.” Benjamin-Williams (photo) lawyer Leonard Levenson said the nanny did not have anything to do with what happened to Maxwell. He noted she immediately called the child’s mother terrified when she found the baby struggling to breathe. “There is absolutely no reason why the defendant in any way would have wanted to kill this child,” he said.