Man Gets Three-Year-Sentence For Child Abuse: Baby In Intensive Care For Three Weeks With Lifelong Issues
A 21-year-old Ohio man received a three-year-sentence for the shaking, biting, and hitting his ex-girlfriend’s 8-month-old baby girl in a 2013 incident which left the baby in the intensive care unit for three weeks.
Dakota Doss, of Amelia, was 19-years-old when he babysat his ex-girlfriend’s daughter. He claimed she choked on her formula and lost consciousness, so Doss called 911 to get medical help for the infant.
Prosecutors soon found out Doss was trying to cover up his abuse of the child, according to Fox 19.
“The defendant gave several conflicting statements to law enforcement which included admissions to biting her inner thigh, hitting her backside, and shaking the child,” according to Scott C. O’Reilly, Clermont County Assistant Prosecuting Attorney.
The baby had to be flown to Cincinnati Children’s Hospital where she spent three weeks in the intensive care unit. She underwent surgery to save her eyesight, according to court testimony.
Local 12 reported that Dakota Doss allegedly babysat the girl at other times without incident, according to the baby’s mother. Examinations at the time of the incident showed the baby had multiple bruises on her body. The girl now lives with her father.
Although Dr. John Galaznik, affliated with the University of Alabama Student Health Center, testified that no human can shake a baby hard enough to cause bleeding in the brain but choking on formula could. Galaznik testified on the defense’s behalf.
Dr. Galaznik did not explain how choking on formula could cause a bite mark on the the baby’s thigh.
Dr. Bob Shapiro was blunt about how he felt about Galaznik’s claims on how choking could have caused the baby’s internal bleeding.
“That’s a bunch of crap. Little children don’t choke on formula in such a way they convulse and cause traumatic brain injury…When you start discussing experts who are getting a million dollars, you have to wonder, are they looking at science or financial gain?”
Experts confirmed the child suffered from bleeding on her brain from the shaking she endured. Her cognitive functioning is impaired, and she is cross-eyed from the child abuse suffered at the hands of Doss.
Doss was charged with two felony counts of child endangering and will spend the next three years of his life in prison for the child abuse acts he committed on the baby – time which some think is hardly a slap on the wrist compared to his crime.
[Photo by John Moore/Getty Images]
