Father pleads guilty to not protecting abused infant

The father of a baby that was severely abused in the summer of 2008 has pleaded guilty in Superior Court to failing to protect the child while living with the child and his mother in New London.

Christopher Santiago, 26, will be sentenced on Jan. 22 to six years in prison and five years probation for risk of injury to a minor.

Doctors at Lawrence & Memorial Hospital and the Connecticut Children's Medical Center determined the child, then 3 months old, had been abused after Santiago took him to the hospital in August 2008. A doctor said the baby had "multiple unexplained serious physical injuries, including fractures sustained in at least two different time frames." He suffered a fractured skull and 11 fractured ribs. His left leg was broken in two places and he had bruises, abrasions and swelling on his abdomen and elsewhere. The child was released to the care of the Department of Children and Families and has been placed in a home with adoptive parents.

Santiago was initially charged with abusing the 3-month-old child, but the circumstances of the case changed after the child's mother, Charley French-Cochise committed suicide in April. The mother had implicated her husband, Santiago, as the abuser during a New London police investigation of the crime, but wrote a suicide saying it was she who had abused the baby, not Santiago. Santiago then claimed he had kept silent to protect his troubled, drug-addicted wife.

- Karen Florin