Dad charged after baby dies from injuries 9 years later (Rome, New York)

Dad is identified as JOSHUA COSTELLO. No mention of a mother in the home.

http://www.uticaod.com/article/20140228/NEWS/140229206

Rome father charged after shaken baby dies 9 years later

A father once arrested for shaking his newborn baby in 2003 is now facing manslaughter charges after those injuries ultimately killed the young girl nine years later, authorities said.  

Rocco LaDuca
Posted Feb. 28, 2014 @ 1:05 pm
Updated at 2:51 PM

UTICA

A father once arrested for shaking his newborn baby in 2003 is now facing manslaughter charges after those injuries ultimately killed the young girl nine years later, authorities said.

Joshua Castello, 33, of Rome, pleaded not guilty to second-degree manslaughter Thursday in Oneida County Court after he was indicted by a grand jury on the single charge. He is due back in court on Friday, March 14.

The 9-year-old girl died in September 2012, prosecutors said, but it took more than a year for investigators to determine whether the fatality could be linked to the “reckless” injuries the child had allegedly suffered at the hands of her father so long ago.

“We had to do some work on our own in regards to medical evidence before we felt we had a case to put before a grand jury,” Oneida County First Assistant District Attorney Dawn Catera Lupi said Friday. “There were legal issues and evidentiary issues that we felt needed to be resolved before we were prepared to move forward.”

Lupi would not disclose the child’s official cause of death, but the New York State Police investigator who initially handled the incident in 2003 recalled Friday that it was unclear at the time how much the physical trauma would impact the child’s long-term welfare.

In 2003, Castello was initially charged with second-degree assault, a felony, and endangering the welfare of a child after admitting that he had shaken the two-week old baby at their Heritage Acres residence along the Herkimer-Oneida county-line in the town of Schuyler, state police Senior Investigator Timothy Blaise said.

Although Castello initially lied about doing anything to the baby, he later claimed that he fell asleep with the girl cradled in his arm in the living room, Blaise recalled. Then when he woke up, Castello said the baby’s head was limp and so he shook the child while asking, “What’s wrong? What’s wrong?”

While medical personnel concluded back then that the girl’s injuries would have lasting effects, they weren’t sure what their extent would be, Blaise said.

“The baby had a traumatic brain injury at the time, but we were told that because the child was so young, they couldn’t tell if the injury would last forever or if the child would recover,” Blaise said.

Later that year, Castello pleaded guilty in Herkimer County Court to felony assault and was sentenced in July 2003 to five years of probation and time-served, court officials said. An 18-year order of protection was also issued for Castello to have no contact with the child until 2021.