South Pasadena father convicted of assault in death of newborn son

SOUTH PASADENA, Calif. (CNS) – A South Pasadena man was convicted Tuesday of assault on a child that also left his newborn son dead. Prosecutors claimed he suffocated and died months later after being taken off life support.

According to Assistant District Attorney Jonathan Hatami, the jury voted 11-1 to find Christopher Richmond guilty on a different charge – murder – in the death of his son Cash.

Richmond, 31, was also convicted of domestic assault causing bodily harm, but was acquitted of charges of forcible assault involving the baby’s mother in April 2022 and August 2021, respectively.

Hatami said Richmond faces 26 years to life in state prison. The verdict is scheduled to be announced Dec. 13 in a Pasadena courtroom.

“After a journey of more than three years, there is finally some justice for seven-week-old baby Cash, his mother Candice, his grandma Kathy, his brother Anthony and the entire Alhambra and Pasadena communities,” Hatami said after the jury’s verdict.

“We would like to personally thank the jurors for their dedicated service. We are also incredibly grateful to the South Pasadena Police Department and…[the Sheriff’s] Thank you to the Homicide Unit for their commitment to justice and their hard work on this case. “Cash’s life was important and he will never be forgotten.”

A decision is expected to be made after the verdict on whether prosecutors will seek a retrial of Richmond on murder charges, the prosecutor said.

“We are unlikely to retry Count 1 as long as the defendant is sentenced to 26 years to life in state prison,” Hatami said, referring to the murder charge. “However, we will decide this after sentencing.”

In his opening statement last month, Assistant District Attorney Brian Rosenberg urged jurors to hold Richmond “accountable” for his son’s death, while the defendant’s attorney accused law enforcement of jumping to conclusions about his client and failing to conduct an adequate investigation .

Rosenberg told the jury that a Sept. 25, 2022, 911 call in which Richmond reported that the 7-week-old boy had stopped breathing while he was feeding him a baby bottle of milk was “eerie” because the defendant “was calm.” behave” and “act like he doesn’t care.”

In the 911 recording, Richmond can be heard telling a dispatcher that he waited 15 to 20 minutes to call 911 – an estimate he narrowed to five, according to prosecutors, during a hearing about the boy’s custody in February 2023 minutes reduced.

Rosenberg said the defendant, who had to care for the child while the baby’s mother was at work, refused to enter his son’s hospital room and fought her efforts to take the boy off life support no matter what what his prognosis was or whatever the doctors had recommended.

The baby, who prosecutors said fought for his life for four months, died on February 17, 2023, when he was six months and 15 days old, after being taken off life support. An autopsy revealed the boy died from multiple blunt traumatic injuries.

A doctor at Mattel Children’s Hospital subsequently noted that X-rays she examined of the boy showed he had two previous incidents of broken ribs, according to prosecutors, who said the boy also suffered a broken leg and a fractured cervical vertebra who he was “so shaken that he broke his neck.”

“…Hold him accountable for his actions,” the assistant district attorney told jurors.

Defense attorney Michael Hawkins told jurors they accused investigators of “rushing to judgment” and said jurors would “expect more from this investigation.”

“We know that Cash was mistreated. We know that Cash suffered injuries…Who inflicted the injuries on Cash?,” he said. “We need to find out what happened to Cash.”

Richmond’s lawyer said his client was portrayed by prosecutors as “this callous, murderous monster” but instead described him as a first-time father who was “happy” to be a parent and who has only ever been heard raising his voice told the boy to “stop crying.”

“Why would Chris intentionally kill his 7-week-old baby?” the defense attorney asked the panel.

Hawkins told jurors there was no evidence the baby cried that day. His client gave his son a bottle of milk and Richmond first called the baby’s mother to report what happened before she told him to call 911.

The defense attorney told jurors that investigators assumed Richmond was guilty after “simply adopting the mother’s version.”

Hawkins described Richmond as “great with kids” and said Richmond “switches off” in stressful situations – to explain his behavior during the 911 call.

In her testimony early in the trial, Samantha Munoz, a 911 operator, described Richmond as “strangely calm” during his 911 call.

Another 911 operator, Patricia Velasco, said: “It’s the only call I still have with me. From start to finish it was just a strange phone call… When I spoke to the father he was so calm.”

South Pasadena Fire Department firefighter/paramedic John Papadakis described the boy’s mother as “hysterical and crying” and Richmond as very “calm and stoic.”

Under cross-examination, all of the witnesses admitted that they had never spoken to Richmond before and did not know how he handled stressful situations.

Jurors also saw a police officer’s bodycam footage from the crime scene.

South Pasadena Police Officer Issac Gutierrez described the baby’s mother as “hysterical almost the entire time” while the boy’s father seemed “just calm.” The officer said he assumed Richmond would have had a similar reaction to the baby’s mother seeing his child “laying lifeless on the ground.”

Richmond was arrested four days after his son was hospitalized and has been behind bars ever since, jail records show.

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