Ex-Deputy Gets 1 Year in Child Abuse

A former Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy and his girlfriend were sentenced in Lancaster on Thursday to one year in County Jail for felony child endangerment in the physical abuse of the woman’s 18-month-old daughter.

Lancaster Superior Court Judge Haig Kehiayan imposed the maximum sentence permitted by a plea bargain under which former Deputy Daniel A. Casteel, 29, and Rebecca L. Collins, 26, pleaded no contest to the endangerment charge last month.

Collins’ daughter was found to have suffered a fractured forearm, hipbone and ribs--injuries that doctors said could have come from the infant being picked up by her leg and thrown in a mid-January incident.

Casteel resigned from the Sheriff’s Department in July after entering his plea. A sheriff’s spokesman said that deputies convicted of felonies are automatically fired in any case.

“I don’t believe these people deliberately persecuted this child or abused it. I think this is a situation where someone lost their temper and the baby suffered for it,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. Chesley McKay, who sought the one-year sentence for the couple.

McKay said he believes it was Casteel who abused the infant, due to the extent of her injuries and the force necessary to inflict them. The prosecutor said he believes that Collins knew of the abuse but failed to act. But their pleas did not define their roles.

In letters to the judge seeking leniency, Casteel and Collins insisted they were innocent despite their pleas, which are the equivalent of a guilty plea for criminal court purposes. Casteel said he could not risk a trial conviction that could have resulted in a sentence of up to nine years in state prison. Collins said she hoped to regain custody of her child.

Kehiayan handed down the one-year sentences anyway. Casteel, an eight-year veteran of the department who had been assigned to the Antelope Valley station, will be given credit for nearly one month in custody. Collins has credit for more than six months in jail.

The couple were living in Lancaster and engaged to be married at the time of the incident in January, when Collins took the infant to the hospital at Edwards Air Force Base for treatment. Casteel had been off duty on medical leave since mid-November due to a prior injury.

The judge gave Casteel until Nov. 16 and Collins until Monday to report to jail. He also placed them both on five years probation and imposed separate $100 fines. The judge also ordered Casteel not to associate with Collins’ daughter after his release.

The child was sent to Virginia to live with the parents of her natural father, court documents stated.