June 26, 2023 at 2:11 p.m.
Father sentenced to 15 years for causing brain injury to infant son
Similarly, before handing down a sentence of 15 years confinement to be followed by 10 years extended supervision, Oneida County circuit judge Mike Bloom repeated the words "why" and "how".
The sentencing hearing took place one month after Kuehl entered a guilty plea to a single felony count of physical abuse of a child (repeated acts causing great bodily harm) and approximately 15 months after he admitted to swinging, squeezing and holding down his infant son in an attempt to stop him from crying.
According to the criminal complaint, he was charged in late February 2022 after the child stopped breathing and was taken to a hospital. Doctors diagnosed the baby with an anoxic brain injury and multiple rib fractures. A child abuse specialist later determined that the injuries were consistent with "non-accidental trauma" and found evidence of older injuries, the complaint said.
According to Oneida County district attorney Mike Schiek, the child is now approximately 18 months old but, due to the brain injury he suffered at the hands of his father, his neurological function remains that of a 3 or 4-month-old.
The child is blind and unable to swallow. As a result, he must be fed via feeding tube (a process that consumes approximately 6 hours of his mother's day every single day) and will not "receive the benefits of a normal childhood," the prosecutor added.
"How someone can do something like this to their own child is beyond me," Schiek said, describing Kuehl's conduct as "indefensible" and "as aggravated as can be."
Schiek candidly admitted that when he was first informed of the severity of the child's injuries, he believed the boy would not survive. He also noted the mother's strength and devotion in providing care to her children.
"How she does this I don't know," he said. "She's one of the strongest people I've ever met emotionally. She's been able to deal with this, regardless of the last 16 months she's stood by that child's side and done everything asked of her."
He also noted the couple has an older child who also suffers due to the level of care and attention her sibling requires.
He recommended a 25-year sentence, 15 years confinement and 10 years extended supervision.
For her part, public defender attorney Elizabeth Svehlek stressed that Kuehl is highly educated, very intelligent, hard-working and in just about every way very different from most of the defendants the court sentences.
She stated that he chose to plead guilty because he wanted to take responsibility for his actions and spare his family the agony of a trial. She described Kuehl as a very driven individual who has always held himself to a high standard. He became overwhelmed by what he believed were his responsibilities as a man and his thinking was impacted by mental illness, she said.
Kuehl, she told the court, was hearing voices and was "delusional" as to the impact of his actions on the child. He thought he was "soothing" the child, she added before going into detail as to her client's diagnoses and treatment.
She also noted that Kuehl admitted his culpability immediately, explaining to investigators that he had a particular "routine" for calming the child down that he now realized was "too rough."
Svehlek recommended a sentence of 8 years confinement to be followed by 10 years extended supervision.
"I truly don't know how this happened," Kuehl said when given a chance to address the court. "I've always put my effort forward, my best intentions forward, in everything that I've done and I don't know how this happened. I got overwhelmed. Everything became too much. It was a perfect storm of everything."
"People talk about mental health but they don't understand it. They don't understand that it's real and that it's pervasive and that it sneaks up on you," he added. "I never saw this coming. I can't understand how it happened. I don't understand how it happened. I don't understand how it happened."
He went on to describe his elation when his children were born and how he felt "so ready" for his son's arrival.
"I was so ready for him to come and I was so proud," he said. "I never saw this coming."
He finished his statement by thanking the doctors who saved his son's life. He also thanked Schiek for the work he has done on behalf of his wife and son.
"They needed good representation and they got it and I thank (Schiek) for that," he said." I'm very sorry for what I've done. I never saw this coming and I'm very sorry."
Bloom agreed with both attorneys that this case and this defendant are "very different" from most of the criminal cases before him. He spoke of his own experiences years ago as a young father raising two small children while coping with the stress of a high-pressure job and the normal rigors of life.
"I know the benefits, motivations, joys, ambitions, the bright future, that can flow from a (family) scenario like that," he said.
He stated that the only explanation that has been offered for what happened is that the sound of the child's crying "got under (Kuehl's) skin" and added that Kuehl could have alerted his wife that he couldn't handle the situation or closed a door and allowed the baby to cry in his crib.
"But that's not what happened. Something inside of the defendant caused him to do what he did," the judge said.
"How did it come to this," he asked aloud at one point. "Why? How?"
"Those of us that have children know the smallness, the delicacy, the fragility of an infant child. And the fact that there is something within Mr. Kuehl that caused him to exert the degree of force in the manner that he did against a three-month-old infant child, his own son, is indefensible," he continued. "It's incomprehensible and the presence of mental health issues, which I know are real and challenging, in my experience are not so powerful as to cause a person, even those who suffer from mental illness, to not comprehend that the small three-month-old child that they are holding in their hands likewise is real."
He then followed the prosecutor's recommendation and sentenced Kuehl to 15 years confinement and 10 years extended supervision.
Kuehl will receive credit for 488 days served.
Heather Schaefer may be reached at [email protected].
Comments:
You must login to comment.