A Petrolia man was sentenced to serve 30 to 60 months in state prison for severely beating a 2-year-old girl who continues to struggle after having undergone emergency brain surgery following the December 2020 incident.

Dakota Lee Anthony, 22, was sentenced Thursday, March 30, in Butler County Common Pleas Court to 30 to 60 months in prison, followed by 60 months of probation after pleading no contest to a felony charge of aggravated assault filed by state police.

Police said Anthony caused life threatening injuries to the 2-year-old daughter of his then girlfriend on Dec. 10, 2020, in Petrolia.

Following the incident, Anthony told police the girl fell from a changing table where he left her momentarily while he retrieved a change of clothes for her. Police said the table was about 34 inches tall.

The girl’s mother left her in Anthony’s care when she went to work that day, according to police.

In a victim-impact statement, the girl’s grandfather Jonathan Sasse said he and his wife take care of the girl who was found unresponsive after the assault and was flown to a Pittsburgh hospital where she was placed on a ventilator and had emergency brain surgery.

He said her skull was fractured and part of her skull was removed. She spent 26 days in intensive care and was treated in a rehabilitation facility until February 2021, he said.

The girl has violent outbursts, scratches and hits his wife and screams during visits to her doctor.

“The little girl that existed before is gone,” Sasse said.

He said she lost the use of the right side of her body and her cognitive abilities are impaired. She remains in therapy and is making progress, he said.

Judge Kelley Streib, who ordered the sentence, said written victim-impact statements were also submitted.

Streib also sentenced Anthony to serve 24 months of probation — consecutive to the probation for the aggravated assault — for violating terms of his probation in a separate case.