A 33-year-old man was sentenced Friday to seven years to life in prison for shaking his 2-month-old daughter so violently it left the infant with brain damage.
Ryo Anegawa pleaded guilty Dec. 10 to assault resulting in a comatose state or paralysis of a child younger than 8 with a sentencing enhancement for causing great bodily injury on a child younger than 5, according to court records. Orange County Superior Court Judge Andre Manssourian gave the defendant 2,418 days behind bars.
Prosecutors said in court papers that he injured the baby in Irvine on May 9, 2018.
“Defendant shook his 2-month-old baby so hard that her head snapped back and she became limp and lost consciousness,” prosecutors said in court papers. “She was still limp and lethargic when defendant brought the baby to her mother.”
The victim was diagnosed at Children’s Hospital Orange County “with a bilateral subdural and retinal hemorrhage, and showing signs of permanent paralysis,” prosecutors said.
In the subsequent year of evaluations a physician noted that the baby “lagged behind in her motor function development due to the brain injury she suffered from the shaking. After her first birthday, she could not eat properly, was unable to walk or crawl, could not play with toys or grasp items. She could not hold her own bottle. She could not sit up without toppling over unless she was propped up by pillows.”
Prosecutors also alleged that the defendant “was frustrated with the birth of the baby because a child was not a part of his life’s plan,” and that he shook the baby when he had trouble getting her to stop crying.
When the baby was a year old, she had the developmental level of a four- to six-month-old, prosecutors said.