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The Gazette

Foster dad gets 25 years for killing child

BRIGHTON - A foster father has been sentenced to 25 years in prison after he returned home drunk from a Super Bowl party and beat a 2-year-old to death.

Ricky Haney, 38, of Westminster pleaded guilty in Adams County District Court to criminally negligent child abuse resulting in the death of Miguel Arias-Baca on Jan. 31, 1999.

During the sentencing, Haney pleaded for mercy and blamed the crime on alcohol.

"Obviously, when I hit Miguel's head, I wasn't in my right mind. It wasn't Rick Haney. It was a Rick Haney that had had too much to drink," Haney told Adams County District Judge Thomas Ensor.

The January 1999 beating of Miguel was one in a string of violent child deaths connected to county social services agencies that pushed Gov. Bill Owens to direct a task force to investigate the system.