YOUNGSTOWN — Andres Garcia, 41, pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter and felony child endangering Thursday in the death of his infant daughter but later told the judge “I’m innocent.”

Judge John Durkin of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court sentenced Garcia, of Cleveland, to 10 to 15 years in prison for causing the blunt-force trauma to the torso of his 8-month-old daughter, Andrea, on Jan. 17, 2020, that killed her. He gets credit for the year he has spent in the county jail awaiting his trial.

The sentence was agreed upon by the defense and prosecution. It is indefinite under a new Ohio law that allows someone to remain in prison longer than the minimum for bad behavior in prison or less time for good behavior.

“I don’t know what happened that day,” he told the judge. “She was just choking. I was trying to revive her. I ask myself every day ‘What happened to her?’ Yes I was the only person there. It’s got nothing to do with my history.” He said, “I did nothing wrong to her” and asked to take a lie detector test but was told he couldn’t.

“That’s my baby,” he said. “That’s everything I got. I’m innocent.”

Garcia was at home on Willow Court on the East Side with the child and her siblings when a call was made to 911 indicating that the girl was choking and not breathing, police said. Ambulance personnel took the child from a second-floor bedroom unresponsive. She later died at St. Elizabeth Youngstown Hospital.

There also were six other children in the home ranging in age from 18 months to 16 years.

Theresa Gaetano, chief investigator with the Mahoning County Coroner’s Office, said the death was ruled a homicide May 1, 2020. Her death did not appear initially to be a homicide and was ruled initially “unknown,” Gaetano said.

Andres Garcia told police the child had a fever that began the night before and said she was sweaty.

Her crib was in the master bedroom, and Garcia told police he gave the girl an over-the- counter fever medicine and she started shaking, so he had another child call 911. She stopped breathing while ambulance workers were on their way.

In court Thursday, Garcia cried as Assistant Prosecutor Jennifer McLaughlin discussed the facts of the case, saying an autopsy indicated the girl suffered two dislocated vertebrae in her upper body and also had internal bleeding.

McLaughin said “what exactly occurred that caused these injuries, I don’t think anyone but the defendant and Andrea would know. There was nobody else in the room at the time.”

She said Garcia’s guilty plea to involuntary manslaughter indicates Garcia was responsible for “an act of recklessness,” she said. “He was not charged with the purposeful murder of this child,” she said. “I think this agreement represents the conduct that he engaged in that unfortunately caused the death of his daughter.”

She said the infant’s mother has “struggled with this, trying to grasp exactly what happened exactly, what the defendant’s role or fault in this was.” She did not speak during the hearing.

Garcia’s attorney, Ed Hartwig, said Garcia “has always maintained he was trying to revive Andrea when it happened,” but entered into a plea agreement “to save the family any more heartache.”

The baby’s mother, 34, told police she left for work at 5 a.m., then came back at 8 a.m. to pick up a daughter, 18, who works with her. Both were at work when they learned the baby had gone to the hospital.

While writing a police report, officers discovered Andres Garcia had a warrant out of Cleveland for a probation violation and took him into custody.

The probation violation was in a 2014 felony domestic violence case in which he was convicted and sentenced to two years of probation.

erunyan@vindy.com