A father was sentenced to 12 years in prison on Thursday for shaking his infant daughter so hard in 2008 that she died. His wife and mother sobbed as a McHenry County Circuit Court judge delivered the sentence.
“The circumstances here are unfortunate and long lasting,” Judge Gordon Graham told Salvador Avila, 22, who also wiped away tears.
Avila, of Woodstock, was 18 at the time he shook his 2½ month-old-daughter, Sophia, in a way that caused irreversible retinal detachment and brain hemorrhaging, experts testified during an October bench trial. The infant was shaken in the far northwest suburban Harvard home of her maternal grandmother. She died two days later in a Rockford hospital.
During the trial, Graham found Avila guilty of aggravated battery of a child, but not guilty of first-degree murder.
Before sentencing on Thursday, prosecutor Sharyl Eisenstein described Avila as an “angry” and “immature man.” Avila made up several stories during the investigation about his daughter’s death, and has not taken responsibility for his actions, she told the judge.
“Instead he is still denying what happened to this young, young infant,” Eisenstein said.
An assistant public defender, Kim Mesner, disagreed with that portrayal, saying Avila has shown “a lot of maturity and a lot of seeking of forgiveness.”
Avila faced six to 30 years; Mesner asked the judge to sentence Avila to just six. Prosecutors had asked for 25 years.
Avila will be required to serve 85 percent of his 12-year sentence and will receive credit for the time served since his arrest in February of 2008, officials said.
Graham said Avila, who is not a U.S. citizen, will be deported when he is released from prison.
Avila and the baby’s mother, the former Brenda Banuelos, had been under investigation by state child welfare workers before the baby’s death. Neither were allowed to be alone with Sophia due to her hospitalization for fractured ribs weeks before her death.
Banuelos gave birth to another child by Avila while he was in custody; she has since married Avila and taken his name.
Harvard Detective Verle Leard, who investigated the case, watched quietly as Avila was sentenced.
“I hope it haunts him the rest of his life,” Leard said outside the courtroom.
