Plea deal set in baby's death

Ricky Slater, 19, agrees to serve a 12 year sentence in the fatal shaking death of his infant daughter. He could be released in as little as nine years.

By CARRIE JOHNSON

© St. Petersburg Times,
published October 12, 2001

INVERNESS -- Lawyers for both the prosecution and defense agreed: The bruises and broken bones little Lacie Ammerman-Slater suffered in the hours before her death were no accident.

But proving to a jury who actually caused her fatal injuries was another story. Rather than leave the decision to chance, both sides decided Thursday to arrange a plea agreement for the infant's father, 19-year-old Ricky Slater.

Slater, who had been facing a possible sentence of life in prison in a trial tentatively set for next week, agreed to serve 12 years in prison, two years under house arrest and one year on probation for the death of his 3-month-old daughter, which prosecutors labeled "a classic case" of shaken-baby syndrome.

Under Florida law, Slater must serve 85 percent of his prison sentence. He will be credited with time served in jail, which means Slater could be released from prison in about nine years.

The Crystal River man had been charged with first-degree murder, but under the plea agreement, the count was reduced to aggravated manslaughter of a child.

Once Slater is released from prison, he will serve 15 years of probation on a charge of aggravated child abuse for battering Lacie's twin sister, Kelsey. Medical examiners said she had also been harmed.

The twins' mother, Lindsey Ammerman, 17, was not in the courtroom when her boyfriend accepted the plea agreement, nor was Ammerman's mother, Carla Hernandez, who allowed the couple to live with her until about a month before the child's death.

Neither could be reached for comment on Thursday, but Assistant State Attorney Don Scaglione said Hernandez supported the terms of the plea agreement.

"She has been a very rational and logical grandmother, considering she had a granddaughter taken away from her," he said. "She said she knows in her heart Ricky did not mean to kill or injure Lacie."

Scaglione said Ammerman was completely unfazed by news of her boyfriend's deal.

"She said, "Okay, thank you,' and went back to work," he said.

According to an arrest warrant, Slater was alone with the twins the morning of Sept. 13, 2000, after Ammerman left the triplex at 506 NE Ninth St., near Crystal River High, to do laundry.

When Ammerman returned, Slater was agitated and demanded: "Where have you been? Your daughter has been screaming since you left and hasn't shut up."

The infant was unresponsive, her back was arched, her eyes were rolled back and she was gasping for breath, Ammerman told Crystal River police.

Slater and Ammerman took both twins to Seven Rivers Community Hospital. Lacie was later flown to Shands at the University of Florida in Gainesville, where she died two days later. The infant had as many as 17 rib fractures and was bleeding inside her skull at the time of her death, medical reports showed.

Kelsey suffered similar injuries but survived, the report said.

In August, Slater was charged with lewd and lascivious battery on a child between the ages of 12 and 16 for having consensual sex with Ammerman, who was 16 at the time of her daughter's death.

Under the plea agreement, that charge was reduced to misdemeanor battery. Slater was sentenced to one year in jail and will be credited with time already served. He has been held at the Citrus County jail since Sept. 27, 2000.

Scaglione said he and defense attorney Norman Cannella, one of Tampa's best-known criminal defense lawyers who was hired last November to represent Slater, had been discussing the possibility of a plea agreement for several months.

"After reviewing the case with a number of attorneys, we felt that this resolution probably was in the best interest of all the parties," Scaglione said.

While he said he was prepared to present several doctors who would testify Lacie's death was not accidental and create a time line that would link Slater to the crime, Scaglione said the case was made difficult by its reliance on the testimony of medical experts. There were no eyewitnesses or murder weapon to present to jurors.

"Juries are unpredictable," he said. "And we would have been dealing with highly complicated expert evidence."

Cannella said he did not plan to refute the prosecution's assertion that Lacie's injuries weren't accidental. But he did plan to raise questions about who struck the mortal blow.

"There are two people involved in this case," Cannella said. "They were around the child about equally at the critical times."

Shaken baby syndrome is a term used to describe the symptoms resulting from violent shaking of a small child or infant. The most common medical findings are bleeding in the eyes and skull, according to the National Center on Shaken Baby Syndrome, an Ogden, Utah-based group.

Other symptoms may include seizures, labored breathing and coma.

Rob Parrish, the center's deputy director and a Utah prosecutor, said shaken baby syndrome cases are notoriously hard to prove because they rarely involve eyewitnesses.

"You're also fighting against public perception," Parrish said. "People never want to believe someone would do anything on purpose to harm a baby."

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