Alex Midyette was sentenced to 16 years in prison this afternoon for neglecting his 11-week-old son, Jason Jay Midyette, as the child lay dying.
Boulder District Judge Lael Montgomery handed down the sentence after Midyette’s family unsuccessfully argued for “compassion and mercy.”
Montgomery called the neglect of Jason Midyette “pervasive and extreme” before she announced the prison term.
Boulder prosecutor Collette Cribari told the judge that there were no photographs of a smiling Jason because he lived a life of pain and misery.
“He’ll never go to prom, he’ll never be a dad, he never held a crayon to write his name … he will never have those experiences,” Cribari said. “His life was taken away from him by the people — Alex and Molly Midyette — who were supposed to protect him.”
Midyette, 29, of Lafayette was convicted of criminally negligent child abuse by a Denver jury in February. The jurors split 9-3 over a more serious charge of reckless and knowing child abuse resulting in death.
Jason Midyette had more than 30 broken bones and a skull fracture when he died March 3, 2006.
Midyette’s defense lawyers argued that the boy suffered from a disease that weakened his bones.
Kay Midyette, Alex’s mother, told the judge that her son was a caring father who did not abuse his child.
“I can tell you unequivocally, there was not a day that went by that Jason was not seen by somebody — there are 14 adults between us — and no one ever saw anything that gave us any concern of how Jason was cared for,” she said.
Prosecutors contend that Midyette was a frustrated father who abused his son over the course of his short life, ultimately fracturing Jason’s skull on a diaper changing table and that he failed to get medical care for his son as he lay dying.
The trial was moved to Denver District Court because of concerns about pretrial publicity. Midyette is the son of a wealthy Boulder architect and commercial property owner, J. Nold Midyette.
Jason’s mother, Molly Midyette, was sentenced last year to 16 years in prison after being convicted of a more serious felony of failing to get her son medical attention.
Molly Midyette’s parents, Dan and Jane Bowers, tearfully addressed the judge.
“It is important to remember Jason Jay, who is lost in this,” Jane Bowers said. “We have not been able to watch him grow up in the last three years but I see him in my mind’s eye every day.”
Cribari argued that Alex Midyette should get as much time as his wife did.
“Anything less than that would be a miscarriage of justice,” she said.
After Alex Midyette was convicted, he was released pending sentencing on $1.5 million bond.
But in March, he was accused of violating the conditions of his bond by dating a day-care operator and hanging out with her children and Montgomery raised his bond to $20 million.
Midyette has been in Boulder County Jail since then.
