FOSTER DAD GUILTY IN CHILD'S DEATH

WESTMINSTER MAN COULD FACE 32 YEARS IN PRISON

Rocky Mountain News

A Westminster foster father who beat to death a child in his care pleaded guilty Wednesday to criminally negligent child abuse.

Ricky Haney, 38, initially had been charged with knowing and reckless child abuse resulting in the death of 2-year-old Miguel Arias Baca.When sentenced in Adams County District Court on Aug. 2, he could be sentenced to a maximum of 32 years in prison.

"We've been in contact with the (boy's) mother," District Attorney Robert Grant said. "She concurred with the disposition."

After the the child died, Haney told detectives that his wife was responsible for Miguel's death.

He later confessed he hurled the toddler from a dresser, slammed the boy's head against the floor and smeared feces on Miguel's face for dirtying his diaper.

Adams County Department of Social Services workers took Miguel and a younger brother away from their natural mother in 1998 because she was addicted to crack cocaine.