Posted on 08/21/2004 2:34:38 PM PDT by NewRomeTacitus
PROVO - Dismissing claims that his actions were a mistake made in anger, a 4th District judge ruled Friday an Orem man will spend 10 years to life in prison in the rape and near-fatal beating of his girlfriend's 2-year-old daughter.
"I feel really bad for everything that has happened," Juan Pablo Garcia-Miranda, 22, told Judge Claudia Laycock through an interpreter. "I know I have caused damage to some people. . . . I want to ask forgiveness."
But Laycock noted the child suffered permanent brain damage and had to relearn to walk. The extent of the damage will not be known until she begins school, the judge said.
For days after the Feb. 16 incident, the girl was in a drug-induced coma and on life support; doctors did not know whether she would live.
"What happened to my daughter was something terrible," the girl's 20-year-old mother told Laycock, also through an interpreter. "My little girl is not a normal girl - she has to have surgeries.
"What am I going to say to her when she's older and she asks?" the woman said. "If it depended on me, he could stay in jail and rot in jail. If once I loved him, now I hate him with all my heart."
Initially charged with attempted murder, Garcia-Miranda pleaded guilty last month to aggravated sexual assault, a first-degree felony, and child abuse, a second-degree felony.
Orem police Sgt. Gordon Smith, who was assigned to the case, told Laycock it was the worst case of child sexual and physical abuse he has seen in his 15 years in law enforcement.
"I've seen a lot, and this was shocking to me," he said. "This shouldn't have happened to this little girl. She doesn't deserve this."
Asked why he mistreated the child, Smith said Garcia-Miranda told him that unlike an infant he shares with the woman, the 2-year-old was "not my daughter."
Defense attorney Gunda Jarvis said the girl's injuries occurred in a "moment of anger that changed many lives.
"This man is not a horrible person," Jarvis said. "He made a large mistake. . . . This will never happen again."
Laycock, however, said she has worked on cases involving head injuries and is aware of the amount of force it would take to cause such an injury, adding a doctor has said the girl's injuries were the equivalent of falling three floors onto concrete.
"I think it's more than just a mistake on his part," she said.
Garcia-Miranda was arrested after he brought the unconscious girl to an Orem hospital emergency room. Although she was breathing, police said, she had a fractured skull and the bleeding was putting pressure on her brain.
"Mr. Garcia is an extremely dangerous individual," said prosecutor Donna Kelly. "He doesn't believe he needs treatment of any kind . . . he continues to lie about what happened, what he did to this child."
(End of article)
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This report from June, "Suspect pleads not guilty to assault on 2-year-old" contains details somehow left out of this latest story :
The state said the assault was so violent that it charged Garcia-Miranda with attempted murder, a first-degree felony. He has also been charged with one count of aggravated sexual assault, a first-degree felony; and one count of child abuse/neglect, a second-degree felony...
The defendant, an illegal immigrant requiring an interpreter, has been held in the Utah County Jail since his arrest Feb. 16...
allegedly(?) assaulted the 2-year-old daughter of his common-law wife, who is 19 years old. Police learned of the assault when he took the girl to the emergency room with a fractured skull. He told police that she climbed on top of the kitchen table and fell while he was in the shower.
Prosecutors also allege that in a separate incident, Garcia-Miranda beat the girl with a shoe.
The Division of Child and Family Services has been working with the mother, who also has a 7-month-old daughter with Garcia-Miranda, to make sure she gets the services she needs.
Another hard working family loving honorable illegal. That's what I'm told over and over again these people are. People who break laws are not honorable.
Yes that's true, what happened to this girl little is a tragedy. Having said that if the mother needed a translator is she an illegal alien too and what happens to her? There's so much chaos being created because the government refuses to secure our borders that we're making up rules as we go along here.
Raping a baby in a moment of anger? He needs killing.
It's absurd when such people ask forgiveness. He crossed a line when he raped and beat a two year old.
This beast needed to be put down, not given ten years.
What happened to this little girl is a tragedy.
He only got 10 years? I hope he has a miserable existence in prison but he should be there for life.
This is so awful...and how did anyone allow this to be pled down??? Good lord this man RAPED a 2 year old and then beat this child within an inch of her life...how does that only quaslify for 10 years???? In California as looney as we are rape of anyone under 14 yrs of age by an adult mandates 50 years to life....It happened in a moment of anger???Oh puhleeeeze spare us the culturally sensitive explanation..this animal should be shot at dawn....he can ask God to forgive him
This guy would not be wasting any more valuable oxygen on this planet if it were up to me. Maybe the inmates will take care of this monster.
The POS should have been taken out and hanged after being found guilty by the jury.
Care to bet that the scum will demand citizenship after being in the pen for awhile?
Ahh, yes, the joy of open borders.
"He made a large mistake. . . . This will never happen again."
Not if the bastard gets out of jail in a couple of years, you fools!
I went to the trouble of finding out the perpetrator's legal status and included it, with the link to the article stating it, before posting: " The defendant, an illegal immigrant requiring an interpreter, has been held in the Utah County Jail since his arrest Feb. 16..."; 3rd paragraph.
I was offended by the Salt Lake Tribune for glossing over that fact and merely clarified the article's title. If you were just interested in accuracy you should have reposted it as they wrote it:
"Child abuser given 10 to life - He raped and beat his girlfriend's 2-year-old daughter".
I was initially going to use the word "Monster" in place of "Child abuser". Would that have been edited? I thought the only thing that might be unacceptable would be the advertisement I added for effect.
AGREED!!!! You don't do such a think in a moment of anger. He is low life scum. He attacked a child. I hope he spends the rest of his life behind bars with parole. He doesn't deserve to walk free with the rest of us. Raping a child? Raping a two year old? Dear God........
Meant to say WITHOUT parole!!! Was too upset to type I guess.
He never should have been here. Now he's going to cost us around $20,000 a year to incarcerate (if he doesn't have an "accident" in prison).
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