SALT LAKE CITY — A Salt Lake City father was sentenced to prison after his 2-month-old son was brought to the hospital with a brain bleed.
Jacob Beal, 29, admitted Jan. 6 to recklessly inflicting serious injuries on a child, causing two injuries.
He was sentenced to zero to five years in prison for two counts of aggravated child abuse, a third-degree felony. Third District Judge Kara Pettit ordered the sentences to run consecutively.
Charging documents said Beal lived in a basement home with the child and the child's mother. Relatives who lived upstairs heard the 2-month-old crying one day and invited Beal twice to bring the baby upstairs, where they could help. According to a police booking affidavit, multiple people reported Beal was frustrated with the crying.
The booking affidavit said that while a relative was soothing the child, the child began coughing up thick, bloody mucus, and was soon taken to the hospital.
Beal admitted to police that he "may have been too aggressive when placing the pacifier in (the child's) mouth." He said other injuries came from him tripping on baby supplies while holding the baby and the baby landing on the ground below him.
Charging documents, however, said the hospital's preliminary findings were not consistent with this story.
A third count of aggravated child abuse, a second-degree felony, was dismissed as part of a plea deal.
