A Santa Ana man has been sentenced to four years in state prison after his 10-month-old daughter accidentally ingested fentanyl and had to be revived with an anti-opioid overdose drug.
Jovany Armando Enciso Solorio, 31, pleaded guilty to one felony count of child abuse and endangerment and one felony enhancement for causing great bodily injury on a child under the age of five.
Encisco Solorio admitted to having to revive his lifeless daughter back in June after she sucked on a straw that contained fentanyl. The prescription opioid is extremely dangerous and lethal at low doses.
The father admitted to using naloxone, commercially available as Narcan, to revive his daughter.
The DA’s Office said he changed his story several times when describing the incident to police, at one point even taking credit for saving his daughter’s life. He later admitted that he used the straw to ingest fentanyl.
Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer called the use of fentanyl unpredictable and dangerous, likening it to a “deadly game of Russian roulette.”
In exchange for his plea, the court offered him a sentence of four years — a sentence which prosecutors objected to. He was facing a maximum sentence of 23 years in prison if convicted on all charges, the Orange County District Attorney’s Office said.
“This baby was literally just a few breaths away from dying. Four years in state prison is not enough for someone whose entire job is to protect their child from harm – and instead hands them what equates to a loaded gun,” Spitzer wrote in a news release.
Encisco Solorio has a previous felony conviction for second-degree robbery in 2009, making him a “second-striker” in the eyes of the California legal system.
California’s Three Strikes Law dictates that a defendant who was convicted of any felony with two or more previous strikes face a mandatory state prison sentence of at least 25 years to life.