A man from Waco, Texas was sentenced to 244 years in prison Thursday for sexually assaulting a baby. In this photo, a "non-compliant...
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| A man from Waco, Texas was sentenced to 244 years in prison Thursday for sexually assaulting a baby. In this photo, a "non-compliant" detainee is escorted by guards after showering inside the U.S. military prison for "enemy combatants" in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Oct. 27, 2009. Photo: Getty Images/ John Moore |
By Pritha Paul, International Business Times
A man from Waco, Texas, was sentenced to 244 years in prison Thursday for sexually assaulting a baby, his own 1-month-old daughter.
On Wednesday, Patricio Medina, 27, was found guilty of five charges — one count of aggravated sexual assault of a child, two counts of injury to a child and two counts of endangering a child — adding up to a jail term of 244 years.
"The jury's verdict ensures that this toddler and all children will be safe from this predator for the next 80 years," Assistant District Attorney Gabrielle Massey said in a prepared statement, local news outlet Waco Tribune-Herald reported. "Thanks to the work of CPS and Waco PD Crimes Against Children, the horrific first five weeks of this child's life will not prevent her from having a safe and happy future."
In 2014, Medina’s daughter was discovered with 45 fractured bones consistent with non-accidental trauma, by a doctor who evaluated her. The medical staff informed authorities which eventually led to Medina’s arrest in 2017.
Medina’s trial went on for two days, during which prosecutors Gabrielle Massey and Jennifer Jenkins told jury members that the victim was growing up in a “living hell” due to extensive physical abuse faced at the hands of her father, which turned to sexual abuse when Medina got hooked on to methamphetamine.
“From the outside, the house looks like a normal house, but once you walked inside the doors it was nothing but a living hell for that baby for the first five weeks of her life,” Massey said.
The prosecution also called upon Medina’s girlfriend as well as his cell mate from prison to testify against him.
The baby’s mother, Lisa Montoya, told the court she would often leave their daughter in Medina’s care while she went out to run errands, although she had never seen him physically abusing the baby. She also added that she had no clue as to how the baby received the injuries. Montoya did admit, however, that she and Medina used meth at their Waco home when the children were sleeping on several occasions.
Former McLennan County Jail inmate Fernando Herrera said that Medina confessed to sexually abusing his daughter while he was high on the drug, providing graphic details of the incident. He claimed Medina told him that the latter was alone with his daughter in an instance when the baby started crying. Since he was high, Medina thought that the crying sounded like a woman’s moaning which aroused him. He approached his daughter and put his penis in her mouth, according to reports.
Medina’s attorney Walter M. “Skip” Reaves Jr. tried to discredit Herrera’s reliability as a witness, saying he was often used by the district attorney’s office to reveal secret conversations with fellow inmates in various trials.
“This is not an easy case. It hasn’t been an easy case and it certainly isn’t going to get any easier,” Reaves said during closing arguments. “There is no doubt we are looking at and dealing with a horrible situation. No baby should have multiple broken bones, and it is hard not to get tied up in that, in the pictures and not get tied up in the emotions. But that is exactly what you have to do.”
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