Gonzalez Gets Max Sentence In Child Injury Case

Family members of Aerabella Beck, 3, said they feel some closure Monday after Matthew Gonzalez was sentenced to a maximum of 10 years in prison for felony injury to a child.

The sentencing came nearly a year after Gonzalez was originally charged in an incident that sent then-2-year-old Aerabella to Primary Children’s Medical Center in Salt Lake City.

Injuries that Hon. David Nye said Gonzalez inflicted on Aerabella caused bleeding in her brain and the back of her eyes and a high-force arm fracture.

As the defense spent nearly three hours calling more witnesses to add to the case, Gonzalez continued to plead his innocence.

But in the end, Nye said simply that he did not believe Gonzalez’s story, sentencing him to five years fixed and five years indeterminate. The time will be served concurrently with another sentence Gonzalez received in 2008. He will be given credit for the last year he spent in jail.

“I mean I can’t feel happy like, my daughter, it doesn’t change what happened to my daughter and his kids are losing his dad, but, it feels like some sort of closure. It feels better than three years fixed, three years indeterminate. It’s not a big difference, but it feels that way,” said Aerabell’s mother, Emily Thomas.

The defense asked for only probation for Gonzalez’s sentence.