Lafromboise pleads guilty to assaulting baby

GREAT FALLS — A Rocky Boy man pleaded guilty Tuesday to assaulting an 11-month-old child in his care as part of an agreement that would drop a murder charge stemming from the infant’s death, with sentencing scheduled for April.

Garrett “Kirby” Lafromboise, 21, pleaded guilty federal District Court Tuesday to gagging and hitting the child when the infant wouldn’t stop crying.

“I am guilty … ,” Lafromboise said when Strong asked how he pleaded to the charge of assault resulting in serious bodily injury. “I take responsibility for what I have done.”

U.S. Magistrate Judge Keith Strong said he would recommend that U.S District Judge Brian Morris accept the plea at the sentencing hearing April 25.

Cecilia Rose Gardipee, 22, still faces federal charges of assault resulting in serious bodily injury and second degree murder, or aiding and abetting for each charge, in the death of 11-month-old K.S. on Rocky Boy’s Indian Reservation Oct. 21.

Federal prosecutors do not identify victims by name in criminal cases.

Kaidynce Small, 11 months, died on the reservation Oct. 21, less than two weeks before his first birthday.

Lafromboise remains in jail pending sentencing.

No new date has been set for Gardipee’s trial.

Friday, Judge Strong denied a motion to release Gardipee pending court proceedings.

Lafromboise’s attorney, Evangelo Arvenetes, told Strong he and his client had reviewed the plea agreement and found it appropriate.

“It is more appropriate for his offense than what his co-defendant has done,” Arvenetes said.

U.S. Assistant Attorney Danna Jackson told the judge that the state was prepared to prove in a trial that Lafromboise became frustrated when the 11-month-old would not stop crying. He stuck his finger down the child’s throat to make the infant gag, and became more frustrated when the child continued to cry and struck him in the abdomen, Jackson said.

She said the infant died from injuries sustained that day including skull fractures, hemorrhages and bruising to the brain, hemorrhages to the child’s spinal cord, a broken nose, rib fractures, bruises and lacerations on the extremities and face and internal injuries. The medical expert who wrote the report would have testified that the child died as the result of homicidal violence including possible suffocation, Jackson said.

Strong said he would recommend to U.S. District Judge Brian Morris that he accept the guilty plea. Morris would decide whether to accept that recommendation at the sentencing hearing, he said.

Lafromboise told Strong he understood that the charge has a mandatory 10-year minimum sentence with up to life imprisonment, supervised release following the prison sentence as well as a possible $250,000 fine.

Jackson told Strong that the federal government is prepared to recommend the offense level for Lafromboise — which is used by the judge in determining the appropriate length of sentence — be reduced by two levels and will recommend reducing it another level unless Lafromboise is found to have obstructed justice or does not fully accept responsibility.