17 Years in Prison for Texas Man Who Beat Daughter, 1, as She Learned to Walk

(The AEGIS Alliance) – EL PASO, TEXAS – The father of a 1-year-old daughter who beat her while he taught her how to walk has been sentenced to 17 years in prison following the man being convicted on all 10 counts of child abuse. Including in those 10 counts, the man was also found guilty of abusing two other children, according to the El Paso Times.

El Paso Times previously reported on Anthony Dawayne Williams’s arrest who was convicted on Wednesday for 10 counts of injuring a child, and on Friday he was sentenced to prison.

Included in the charges were three counts of injuring a child with the intent to cause bodily injury, six counts of injuring a child by recklessly causing bodily injury, and one more county of injuring a child by recklessly causing serious bodily injury, El Paso Times reports.

Injury to a child by recklessly causing serious bodily injury is a second-degree felony charge with a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, Williams was sentenced to 17 years behind bars.

Mr. Williams was also handed down eight years of prison time for each third-degree felony charge of injury to a child with intent to cause bodily injury. There is a maximum prison sentence of 10 years for each of those charges, El Paso Times wrote.

Williams was given two-year sentences for the injury to a child by recklessly causing bodily injury, which is the maximum penalty for jail time instead of prison when it comes to state jail felonies.

Williams was convicted by a jury on Wednesday, and they made the sentencing decisions on Friday. The trial was presided over by Judge Patrick Garcia at the 384th District Court.

El Paso Times previously reported that the mother of the children named Jessica Garcia was also arrested with Williams on August 17th, 2018 by El Paso Police at the couple’s home.

The 1-year-old daughter was discovered by officers as unresponsive, she was then treated by medical responders with the El Paso Fire Department. The baby had life-threatening injuries and was rushed to El Paso’s University Medical Center.

According to police, Williams inflicted critical injuries on the baby girl as he struck her several times because she kept falling while he taught her how to walk, El Paso Times said.

An investigation was launched by Child Protective Services working with authorities that revealed two other children were living in the home and it was apparent the children were also physically abused. The ages of those two children weren’t released. CPS removed the children from the home, and no further update has been released about who the children are now living with.

Jessica Garcia’s arrest resulted in her being charged with three counts of injury to a child and a single count of endangering or abandoning a child. Garcia’s trial is due to start on March 24, according to court records and El Paso Times.

Featured Image: Anthony Dawayne Williams (Credit: El Paso Police Department)

Kyle James Lee – The AEGIS Alliance – This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.