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A Queens couple who fed their baby daughter a strict vegetarian diet, including homemade infant formula, were convicted yesterday of nearly starving her to death. A jury in State Supreme Court found the couple, Joseph and Silva Swinton, guilty of first-degree assault and two lesser charges. They were immediately taken into custody. Each faces 5 to 25 years in prison.

The case, described in some headlines as the Vegan Baby Trial, attracted widespread attention beyond the couple's Queens Village neighborhood. Prosecutors said that as exotic and sensational as it sometimes seemed, the facts were plain enough: a diet with no dairy products or infant formula is not adequate for a newborn child, and the parents should have known better.

"This community spoke through the jury and indicated that the weakest will be protected," said Eric Rosenbaum, the prosecutor. "The law protects children." The results of the Swintons' care, prosecutors and medical experts said, were disastrous. By the time the authorities intervened when the child was 15 months old, she was toothless, had rickets, broken bones and internal injuries. She was severely malnourished and weighed 10 pounds — less than half the normal weight for a young toddler.

The girl, IIce (pronounced ICE), will be 3 in July and has been living in foster care since the authorities took her from her parents in November 2001. Prosecutors said yesterday that IIce was "now on the growth scale," and was physically progressing, but doctors suspect that she has neurological damage