Man Gets 6-Year Term in Death of Infant

A 30-year-old Pacoima man was sentenced Wednesday to six years in prison for beating his girlfriend’s 9-month-old foster son to death.

Don Marvin Brown, who pleaded guilty last month to voluntary manslaughter in the baby’s death, was sentenced by Van Nuys Superior Court Judge David P. Yaffe. The term was agreed upon in a plea bargain with prosecutors.

Brown originally had been charged with murder and child endangering in the Sept. 30 death of Brandon Courtney Fields, who was found dead in the Sylmar apartment of Brown’s girlfriend, Deborah Hodges, 31.

In return for Brown’s guilty plea to the lesser charge, prosecutors agreed to seek a sentence of six years in state prison.

Prosecutors alleged that the death occurred when Brown was left alone with the baby while Hodges ran errands.

Police and paramedics at first attributed the death to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. Brown was arrested on Oct. 5 after a coroner’s autopsy discovered that several of the infant’s internal organs had been ruptured, apparently by “deliberate blows.”

The baby was in Hodges’ custody because his natural mother, a heroin addict, had asked that Hodges take care of him, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Lisa Kahn.