SANTA ANA – The attorney for a man accused in the beating death of his 2-year-old niece admitted that he caused her death by spanking but denied that he sexually abused the girl.
Deputy Public Defender Hong T. Nguyen gave her opening statement this morning in the trial of Michael David Balderas, 33, who is charged with murder by torture, murder during the commission of sexual assault, and assault on a child likely to produce great bodily injury resulting in death.
Balderas took custody of his sister's daughter, Jo Jade, in January 2006 after the girl's parents went to federal prison in Texas on drug charges. He was unemployed and living with his girlfriend in a Cypress townhome when he became the legal guardian of the baby, according to prosecutors. Two months later, the little girl was dead.
"Michael Balderas spanked his niece and that spanking resulted in her death," Nguyen said. "But one thing is clear. He did not – he never did – sexually molest her."
Balderas was living in Cypress in October 2005 when he was asked by family members to come to Texas to care for his sister's four children after the sister and her husband were arrested, Nguyen said. Balderas was viewed by his family as the best person to care for the children because he was stable, "not in and out of jail like the other siblings," had been to college and was financially capable, Nguyen said.
In January 2006, Balderas brought Jo Jade back to California. He and his girlfriend moved into a bigger home in expectation that two of Jo Jade's brothers would join them after they finished school for the year in Texas, Nguyen said.
Balderas and his girlfriend, a pre-kindergarten teacher, frequently disagreed on how to discipline Jo Jade, Nguyen said. He irritated his girlfriend by calling her at work "whenever he was at wit's end" when the girl "pooped and peed in her pants" or "wouldn't behave," Nguyen said.
The girlfriend would reply "something to the effect of 'What do you want me to do? I'm at work. She's two years old,'" Nguyen said. Then the girlfriend would get on the phone with Jo Jade and ask her to "listen to uncle," Nguyen said.
However, the girlfriend never saw Balderas physically abuse Jo Jade and never saw any bruises on the child, Nguyen said. Instead, Balderas would make the girl stand in the corner, Nguyen said.
On March 30, 2006, Balderas called his girlfriend at work at about 4 p.m., crying, and asking her to come home, Nguyen said. While she was driving home, he called her again to tell her to hurry. In the meantime, he was performing CPR on the girl, Nguyen said.
When the girlfriend, who is not charged in the case, arrived home, Balderas rushed out with the girl in his arms, still crying. As they drove to a hospital, he continued to perform CPR on the girl, and when they arrived he ran into the emergency room carrying Jo Jade, yelling "Help, my baby is not breathing," Nguyen said.
Doctors weren't able to resuscitate Jo Jade, Nguyen said.
Doctors saw a tear to the girl's anus when they went to take her rectal temperature and reported it to police. Later investigators found minute amounts of semen of the girl's shirt and Balderas' jeans, but this was consistent with someone who had changed the girl's clothes several times that day and had later gone to the bathroom to urinate, she said.
"He is responsible for her death," Nguyen said. "That does not mean he murdered her. He did not murder her."
The girl's DNA was found on Balderas' penis, prosecutors say.
In his opening statement Wednesday, Deputy District Attorney Michael Murray said Balderas "beat her over and over and over again" to "teach her a lesson" because she was not potty trained.
Murray said Balderas confessed to spanking the baby numerous times on the day she died, and that there was evidence she was sexually abused before her death. The baby, he said, had bruising on every inch of her lower extremities.
Balderas could be sentenced to 25-years-to-life in prison if convicted.
Michael Balderas and Jo Jade
Contact the writer: 714-704-3705 or agalvin@ocregister.com
