Mother gets sentence for injuring baby
A Butler County judge sentenced a 28-year-old East Butler woman to prison after she pleaded guilty to causing injuries to her 9-month-old child that resulted in shaken baby syndrome.
Remedios Xochitl Nopaltecatl-Rimirez pleaded guilty last month to endangering the welfare of children as a result of the August 2018 incident.
Common Pleas Judge William Shaffer sentenced her Thursday to two to seven years in prison. With the aid of a bilingual Spanish translator, Nopaltecatl-Rimirez appeared in court shackled and dressed in a jail-issued orange jumpsuit. She has been in Butler County Prison since her arrest in November 2018.
Nopaltecatl-Rimirez was originally charged with a single felony count of aggravated assault, but Assistant District Attorney Patricia McLean, who prosecuted the case, added a second count of endangering the welfare of children on the day Nopaltecatl-Rimirez accepted the plea deal.
In exchange for pleading guilty to the added charge, McLean agreed to drop the original one. McLean said by pleading guilty to the additional charge, Nopaltecatl-Rimirez was admitting responsibility for her baby's injuries.
Police received a call around 5 p.m. Aug. 9, 2018, for an unresponsive child in an apartment on Grant Street. Upon arrival, they found Nopaltecatl-Rimirez with the baby and a 3-year-old child. Nopaltecatl-Rimirez told authorities the injury was an accident, but statements from medical personnel, documented by police, said her explanation didn't account for the extreme damage done to the baby's head.
Hospital staff told police the baby was exposed to some kind of head-impact trauma consistent with “repetitive acceleration-deceleration forces.” According to charging documents at the time, the trauma — known as shaken baby syndrome — was so severe the baby's injuries were expected to lead to permanent impairment.
