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MIDVALE, Utah (AP) -- A 19-year-old Midvale man charged with child abuse after his infant son died will spend a year in jail.
Joel Alfonso Rios was sentenced yesterday. Four-month-old Miguel Jeremiah died last March, a day after Rios struck him in what the mother called a fit of sleep-deprived frustration.
Apparently Rios was working two jobs to provide for the family while she was on maternity leave.
Prosecutors charged Rios with child abuse rather than a homicide because doctors were unable to tie the fatality to the blow, which fractured the left side of the baby's skull.
The exact cause of the baby's death was unclear and the medical examiner lists it as unknown.
(Copyright 2004 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
