Ojai Man Gets 8 Years in Shaking Death of Baby

A 29-year-old Ojai man was sentenced to eight years in prison Thursday after pleading guilty to felony child abuse for shaking his 2-month-old baby so severely that the boy suffered brain damage, fell into a coma and later died.

In an emotional moment before family members and the baby’s mother in Ventura County Superior Court, James Anthony Torres described the afternoon in February of last year when he violently rattled his son Adonis.

Torres, who took care of Adonis and 18-month-old brother Adrian while the boys’ mother, Kelly Gibson, worked, said he was frustrated that the child was ill and would not stop crying.

Adonis had vomited on him twice. He changed the baby’s diapers, placed him in a swing and fed him again. But the baby continued to sob.

“I was tired,” Torres said, tears streaming down his face. “I was frustrated. I was confused. I didn’t know what my son needed.

“I lost control. I shook my son. I held him up in front of me and I shook him. It was two seconds. It happened just like that.”

Adonis’ head slammed into Torres’ collarbone at least once and possibly twice, Torres testified. The child stopped breathing, turned red and stopped moving.

Torres called 911 to report that Adonis was not breathing. He later admitted to police that he had rattled the baby.

Doctors found that Adonis’ skull had been fractured five times, but Torres denied doing anything but shaking Adonis in frustration.

Adonis suffered serious brain damage as a result of being rattled, a condition known as “shaken baby syndrome.”

His arms and legs were paralyzed, he suffered from seizures and had to be fed through a stomach tube before dying last December in a 24-hour care center for brain-damaged children.

Torres was charged with manslaughter and felony child abuse. In February, prosecutors agreed to let him plead guilty to felony child abuse, the greater charge, Deputy Dist. Atty. Dee Corona said.

Torres said Thursday he felt great remorse for what he had done and asked Superior Court Judge Charles W. Campbell Jr. for leniency.

But Gibson testified that her former live-in lover had not yet faced the consequences of his actions, and she asked the judge to consider the full sentence--10 years in prison.

“On Feb., 4, 1994, my newborn baby had the life shaken out of him--violently--by his own father,” Gibson said. “He gave him his life, and he took it away.”

Gibson said Adonis was a cranky, fussy baby, but he was the most beautiful child she had ever seen, fitting of the name Adonis.

“He was sweet and he was innocent and he was completely robbed of his life,” she said.

Before the sentencing, Corona showed the judge a heart-wrenching videotape of Adonis in his final days alongside his mother. Unable to move, the baby was seemingly unable to feel his mother’s touch, and could not control his limbs.

Many of those in the audience sobbed at the sight of the frail baby’s blank stare.

Bruce Robertson, the attorney representing Torres, delivered a passionate argument, saying his client had admitted he killed his son by shaking him, and had shown as much remorse as could be imagined.

“I don’t think you could call it intentional by any stretch of the imagination,” Robertson said. “It was a tragedy.”

Robertson also said that medical reports indicating Adonis had suffered head injuries before the shaking incident were inaccurate and should not be considered in the decision.

Campbell said before entering his judgment that he believed Torres was remorseful, but that the violent nature of the crime warranted eight years in prison. The judge also ordered Torres to pay $1,000 in restitution.

Gibson, who said the crime destroyed her life, now says she will devote herself to making sure other parents understand the dangers of shaken baby syndrome.

Doctors are increasingly recognizing shaken baby syndrome as a cause of brain damage and death in young children. A newborn’s brain is loosely attached, and it hemorrhages when it strikes the skull, causing mental retardation, spastic quadriplegia, severe motor dysfunction, and death, medical research shows.

In a two-year study released earlier this year, the U. S. Advisory Board on Child Abuse and Neglect found that head trauma is the leading cause of child-abuse deaths. The study also found that shaken baby syndrome is so lethal that up to 25% of its victims die and most survivors suffer brain damage.