PHOENIX — A Phoenix father was recently sentenced to 37 years in prison for abusing his three children so severely that one of them died.
Dontae Johnson, 33, pleaded guilty to multiple counts of child abuse in connection to his 2020 arrest.
Johnson had admitted to shaking his twin 3-month-old daughters on multiple occasions to get them to stop crying, according to the Maricopa County Attorney's Office.
Doctors noticed the twin girls had sustained fractured ribs, liver lacerations and displayed signs of being malnourished. One of the girls later died and the other now suffers from significant developmental and cognitive delays.
Investigators additionally recovered evidence showing the father had also physically abused a 14-month-old child.
Court records show the children's mother had gone out of town for a few days and upon her return she noticed something was wrong with the kids. Johnson reportedly told detectives he felt overwhelmed and frustrated with caring for the three kids.
“The abhorrent facts of this case show this defendant has no place in our community because if he can hurt his own children this way, he can hurt anyone else," County Attorney Rachel Mitchell said in a statement.
After serving his prison sentence, Johnson will be placed on lifetime probation.
UP TO SPEED
How big is Maricopa County?
Maricopa County is the United States’ 4th largest county in terms of population with 4,485,414 people, according to the 2020 Census.
The county contains around 63% of Arizona’s population and is 9,224 square miles. That makes the county larger than seven U.S. states (Rhode Island, Delaware, Connecticut, Hawaii, New Jersey, Massachusetts and New Hampshire).
One of the largest park systems in the nation is also located in Maricopa County. The county has an estimated 120,000 acres of open space parks that includes hundreds of miles of trails, nature centers and campgrounds.
The county’s seat is located in Phoenix, which is also the state capital and the census-designated 5th most populous city in the United States.
The county was named after the Maricopa, or Piipaash, Native American Tribe.
