KUSA — A jury in Jefferson County has returned a guilty verdict in the case of a man on trial for beating a young girl nearly to death.
The jury found Joshua Gonzalez guilty after deliberating for three hours on April 13. Gonzalez was found guilty of Child Abuse Resulting in Serious Bodily Injury for abuse of his girlfriend's two-year-old daughter.
Gonzalez faces a mandatory prison sentence of 10 to 32 years and will be sentenced on May 31.
On September 14, 2017, first responders found Gonzalez' girlfriend holding her daughter who was unresponsive and had suffered life-threatening injuries.
The child was transported to the hospital and was diagnosed with severe bruising to the majority of her body, pulmonary contusions, brain bleeding, seizures, hemorrhagic shock, a severely lacerated liver and healing and acute rib fractures.
Gonzalez, 21 years old at the time, was arrested in September 2017.
Separately, Gonzalez' girlfriend, Melissa Mangeri, pled guilty to Child Abuse resulting in Serious Bodily Injury on February 21, 2018 for permitting her child to unreasonably placed in a situation that posed a threat of injury. She will be sentenced on May 17 and could face from two to eight years in prison.
