Dad leaves 4-month-old son at home alone during his visitation; sentenced to 10 years for baby's death (San Antonio, Texas)

Daddy has hired a babysitter before--why didn't he this time? And why should a father have out-of-town weekend visitation with a 4-month old? That's just stupid. 

So this moron abandons the baby for two hours and finds the baby "unresponsive" when he gets home. Instead of calling 911 immediately, he tries CPR himself--and get this--asks the usual babysitter to lie for him and say she had been watching the kids all day.

Dad is identified as NICHOLAS ANTHONY CLIFTON.

http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/local/article/Dad-gets-prison-for-infant-who-died-while-home-5654989.php

Dad gets prison for infant who died while home alone

By Michelle Casady : July 29, 2014 : Updated: July 29, 2014 11:23pm

SAN ANTONIO — A father who left his infant son and 2-year-old daughter at home alone while he went to a job interview — returning later to find the boy dead — has been sentenced to 10 years in prison.

State District Judge Sid Harle had the option Monday of sentencing Nicholas Anthony Clifton to up to 15 years in prison, according to a plea agreement in which he pleaded no contest to the second-degree felony charge of child abandonment.

Without the agreement, Clifton, 24, would have faced up to 20 years in prison for the death of 4-month-old Jeremiah Omar Young in April 2012.

Clifton, who served with the Army in San Antonio, was discharged from the military in February 2012 after an injury. He traveled to East Texas that month to pick up his children from his estranged wife, according to court records.

A woman he had befriended in the Army told police that she had watched the children for him on occasion but that on April 16, 2012, she got a call from Clifton's girlfriend asking if she could pick up his daughter because his son had stopped breathing.

She agreed. Minutes later, the girlfriend forwarded her a text from Clifton, court records state, asking her to tell the police she had baby-sat the children that day.

At the scene, Clifton initially told police he left the boy napping on the couch while he went upstairs to clean, according to court files. But he later confessed that he had left for two hours to interview at a resort, authorities said. He told police he didn't tell the truth initially “because he didn't want (Child Protective Services) to take his kids away.”

He told police he returned home to find the unresponsive boy, who was blue, clutching a blanket in his hand. He attempted CPR before calling police. An autopsy report listed the child's cause of death as undetermined and noted no signs of trauma.