Dad sentenced after taking (and abandoning 10-month-old daughter), hitting her mom, fleeing police (Allentown, Pennsylvania)

This is a kind of confusing story to follow. Dad LUIS ORTIZ apparently got into a fight with his mother, then took off with his mother's van and his 10-month-old daughter. Meanwhile, his girlfriend, the baby's mother, is upset because Dad is keeping the baby away from her. Mom and another man found Dad sleeping in the van at 2: 30 in the morning. The man that was with her tried to open the driver's side door, but Dad woke up and hit the gas, dragging the man about 5 feet. The man had minor injuries. Then Dad hits the baby's mom with the van, knocking her down, and rams a tree and a car. Dad escapes, but several hours later, calls his mother (the one he stole the van from), and tells her where she can find the van. He had abandoned the baby in the van. Dad is then found 3 days later and caught after a police chase.

Yea, that's really wanting quality time with your kid, huh? You abandon the child alone in a van. Got it.

Seems Dad was not a model prisoner in jail either, with six misconducts, three for assault. I'm SO surprised.

http://www.mcall.com/news/all-a7_5ortiz.7069181oct29,0,3481268.story

Allentown man sentenced after allegedly taking daughter, hitting infant's mother with a van and then fleeing police

October 29, 2009

A man charged with abandoning his infant child in a van after ramming it into two people and a car was sent to state prison Wednesday.

Lehigh County Judge Maria L. Dantos sentenced Luis Ortiz, 26, no known address, to 27 months to six years in prison for a strange sequence of events last year.

On Sept. 19, 2008, Ortiz got into an argument with his mother, Carmen Martinez of Bethlehem, around 11:45 p.m. Police say the dispute, which occurred in Allentown, ended with Ortiz driving off with Martinez's van and his 10-month-old daughter.

Family members of Heather Yocum of Allentown, Ortiz's 24-year-old girlfriend, claim Ortiz was trying to keep his daughter away from Yocum. After calling police, Yocum and her family and friends went searching for the van. They found Ortiz and the child asleep in it at 2:30 a.m. in the 1000 block of N. 25th Street, police say.

When then-22-year-old Eric Caraballo, the boyfriend of Yokum's sister, opened the passenger door and tried to get him out, Ortiz hit the gas and dragged Caraballo at least 5 feet, police say. Caraballo was left with cuts on his arm and leg.

Ortiz also ran into Yocum, hitting her twice with the van's bumper and knocking her down. He also backed into a tree, then slammed the van into the car of Yocum's father, Don Yocum, when he tried to block Ortiz's getaway, police say.

Ortiz drove off but called his mother several hours later, telling her that she could find the van and her grandchild in the 600 block of Cherokee Street in Bethlehem, police say. Three days later, police found Ortiz at a motel on Airport Road. After Ortiz jumped out a second-floor window and ran across Airport Road, police sent a dog after him.

Ortiz in September pleaded no contest to four counts of reckless endangerment and a charge of accidents involving injury, all misdemeanors. By pleading no contest, Ortiz didn't admit guilt but acknowledged that a jury could find him guilty.

On Tuesday, he denied hitting Yocum with the car and said he drove to the spot where she and others found him because he knew she'd find him there. He said he used to ''make out'' with Yocum at that location and she would have known she could find Ortiz and her daughter there at 2:30 a.m.

The judge wasn't buying it.

''The offense is bad, the story is ridiculous,'' Dantos said, noting Ortiz has had six misconducts in jail since being arrested, three for alleged assaults.

Ortiz's attorney, Nathan Bauer Schiesser, said Ortiz has a marijuana problem. Schiesser said Ortiz has six convictions for possession of marijuana.

Schiesser also insisted Ortiz wasn't the initial aggressor when Yocum and the others confronted him in the van. He said Caraballo punched out the window of the van and hit Ortiz several times in the face.