Monday, January 31, 2005

D.A. BROWN: FAMILY FRIEND SENTENCED TO 15 YEARS IN PRISON FOR DEPRAVED ASSAULT IN SHAKEN BABY ATTACK ON 10-MONTH-OLD INFANT THAT BLINDED HER AND CAUSED PERMANENT BRAIN-DAMAGE

Queens District Attorney Richard A. Brown announced today that a Queens man has been sentenced to 15 years in prison for a shaken-baby attack that left a 10-month-old infant for whom he was babysitting blind and permanently brain-damaged in a vegetative state -- unable to walk, talk or have any purposeful movement.

District Attorney Brown said, “The defendant was convicted of depraved assault in a shaken-baby attack that blinded and permanently brain-damaged a helpless infant of any semblance of a normal life. The child’s pain and suffering is heart-breaking and the long prison term imposed is more than warranted by the brutal crime.”

The District Attorney identified the defendant as Thomas Walker, 38, of 88-35 164th Street in Jamaica. The defendant was convicted on October 20, 2004 of Assault in the First Degree before Queens Supreme Court Justice Robert C. McGann who imposed last Friday’s determinate sentence of 15 years in prison.

District Attorney Brown said that according to trial testimony on August 1, 2003 the defendant was babysitting the victim, Abijah Dalrymple, 10 months, his wife’s cousin, at his Jamaica, Queens residence. The defendant called 911 and reported that he had been bathing the child and that she had struck her head in the bathtub. Police and FDNY/EMT’s responded to the scene and found the victim unconscious and not breathing. Hospital physicians treated the child and subsequently determined that her injuries were the result of shaken baby syndrome.

The case was prosecuted by Assistant District Attorney Denise Tirino of the District Attorney’s Homicide Trials Bureau with the assistance of Assistant District Attorney Lucinda C. Suarez, Deputy Chief, of the District Attorney’s Special Victims Bureau under the supervision Assistant District Attorney Marjory D. Fisher, Bureau Chief, and the overall supervision of Executive Assistant District Attorney for Major Crimes Charles A. Testagrossa and Deputy Executive Assistant District Attorney for Major Crimes Daniel A. Saunders.