A Colorado Springs mother wept Thursday as she was sentenced to one year in prison in the death of her 4-year-old son, who accidentally shot himself in the head last year while she was watching him in a car outside a Manitou Springs marijuana shop.

Ashlynne Perez, 26, pleaded guilty in late January to criminally negligent homicide in the July death. The sentence also includes two years of probation, Judge Robin Chittum ruled in an emotional court hearing.

Child dies outside Manitou Springs marijuana shop

Chittum recognized Perez’s “unbelievable remorse” from the start of the trial and said it was “one of the most difficult cases I’ve handled, and I’ve done this for a long time.”

Perez, in tears during most of her sentencing, hugged her husband before she was placed in handcuffs.

On July 6, the child was under Perez’s watch while the father was inside Maggie’s Farm. Manitou Springs police officers responded to a shooting there and found the child dead in the front of seat of an SUV with a gunshot wound to his head.

An affidavit stated that while the boy was waiting for his father with a younger sibling, he unbuckled himself from his booster seat. The mother told him to rebuckle, but he refused and climbed to the front seat. As her head was turned, she said, she heard a “loud boom” and turned to find the child had apparently shot himself, the affidavit said.

Mother enters plea on negligent homicide charge in 4-year-old’s shooting death

Perez was arrested along with the child’s father, Carlos Perez, on the day of the shooting. Charges were ultimately dropped for the father, but not for Ashlynne Perez, who was indicted by a grand jury in the case, according to court records.

In the front seat, the 4-year-old had found a loaded gun in the vehicle’s open glove compartment and shot himself with it, an affidavit stated.

Ashlynne and Carlos Perez, authorities said in the affidavit, should have known the child was curious about the gun, as he had been caught playing with firearms before, and that he was capable of unbuckling himself from his booster seat.

Ashlynne Perez’s lawyer, Shimon Kohn, said Thursday that “her inattention for one moment led to something that she will be punishing herself with for the rest of her life.” He asked that his client’s punishment be supervised probation along with a felony conviction.

Mother accused in accidental shooting death of 4-year-old, charges dropped for father

On Thursday, the judge argued that it took “more than a second” for the child, whom she called “little Carlos,” to crawl from the back seat to the front seat of the car, where he killed himself.

Chittum acknowledged Perez’s remorse, no criminal history and that “she’s been doing everything she can in order to try and get herself back for her family.” But the judge ultimately decided on the one-year prison sentence because she dismissed the idea that the shooting happened in “just a second.”

“It was a lot more than just a second,” Chittum said. “He was in the car with a loaded gun that doesn’t have a safety … I don’t know how long it was, but she wasn’t paying attention.”

The prison sentence “is about punishment, it is about accountability,” the judge said.