The first two people held responsible in the death of Tucson-area toddler Adam Mada received sentences Friday of 2.5 years in prison, while the cases of four more relatives are pending.
Maria Annette Alvarez, 25, and Erick Torres Henry, 26, were among six people charged in connection with the 20-month-old boy’s death in March 2016.
The defendants are all relatives of Adam’s on his mother’s side and include his mother, Alejandra Loretta Campas, who did not have custody of Adam when he died, and his aunt, Leticia Elizabeth Henderson, who was his foster caregiver.
The six defendants were originally indicted on charges of second-degree murder, child abuse for failure to seek medical attention, and endangerment.
Henry and Alvarez pleaded guilty to child abuse, not for hurting Adam but for failing to seek medical attention on his behalf.
The married couple received credit for time served in jail or prison for the case, with Henry — who spent nearly three years in jail — being released after Friday’s hearing.
Alvarez was taken into the custody of the Arizona Department of Corrections to serve another 205 days.
Neither received probation as part of their sentence.
“Tragic and senseless. Those are two words that sum up why we are here today,” said Deputy Pima County Attorney Tracy Miller, in addressing the courtroom of Superior Court Judge Paul Tang.
Adam’s autopsy shows he died after experiencing blunt-force-trauma injuries to his abdomen, and tearing to his gastrointestinal tract. He had several rib fractures in various stages of healing, brain swelling and trauma to his head and extremities.
No one has been held accountable for the fatal injuries, though the pre-sentencing report says Adam’s half-sister and an aunt’s “significant other” said they saw Henry hit Adam. Sheriff’s deputies who conducted interviews right after Adam’s death also reported Adam’s half-sister told them she had seen Henry hit Adam.
Several family members said Adam starting vomiting two days before he died, records show.
Miller asked Tang to consider, before sentencing, the pain Adam had endured, his age when he died and the suffering his father and his father’s family continue to experience since his death. She asked the judge to sentence Henry and Alvarez to 18 years of probation each.
“He should be 5 today,” she said of Adam. “He should be getting ready for kindergarten.”
Candy Torres, a paternal aunt to the victim, addressed the court during the hearing and could barely speak because she was crying. She said justice was not going to be carried out in court, but that she trusted it would eventually be “delivered by God.”
Defense attorneys for both Alvarez and Henry said their clients got home from work close to midnight the night before Adam died and that they didn’t realize how severely he was injured. Adam was pronounced dead at 3:36 a.m. on March 12, 2016.
One of Henry’s attorneys, Cynthia Yializis, said her client was not home all day and didn’t realize what was happening with Adam.
The media, she said, has “painted this man to be a violent abuser and he is not.” She said he has “tremendous remorse that he didn’t call for help sooner.”
Alvarez’s attorney, Stephanie Bond, said her client loved Adam and treated him as one of her own.
“At the time all of this occurred, Ms. Alvarez had two children she loved so much,” she said. Alvarez was working full time, Bond said, and tried to help Adam sleep when she found him “being fussy” after work that night.
“She was the one person who brought it to people’s attention,” she said. “She didn’t know the extent to which he was hurt.”
Sheriff’s records show Adam was on the floor near the door of a trailer in Three Points when paramedics arrived that morning. His long-sleeve onesie was caked with vomit. He had been exposed to drugs, a hair follicle test showed, including a prescription pain killer.
Judge Tang said it was “unfathomable” that no one sought medical help for Adam sooner, calling what happened a “violation of human decency.”
Tang also agreed with Miller that the lives of Adam’s father and his father’s relatives were “altered immensely” by his death.
The judge also considered, as part of his sentence, that both Henry and Alvarez had extremely difficult childhoods, and that they were both remorseful about what happened.
Henry declined to address the court and referred the judge to a letter he wrote the court, which was under seal and not available to the public.
Alvarez did address the court.
“I just want to say that these three years have not been easy for any of us,” she said. “I, myself, lost a lot these three years because of this case.”
She said she regrets every day that she did not call for help sooner, and said “what really happened” that day is still unknown.
The couple, who have three biological children, had their parental rights severed. The children are now being raised by their paternal grandfather, pre-sentencing reports show.
The other four defendants, including his maternal grandmother, Leticia Henderson, and her husband, Ambrosio Veranza Pavon, are scheduled for trial in early August.
