Man pleads guilty in child-abuse case

A man charged in what police termed one of the worst cases of child mistreatment they had seen pleaded guilty on Monday to one count of child abuse/neglect and one count of obstruction of justice, both third-degree felonies.

Derrick Lee Crispin, 29, is scheduled to be sentenced Nov. 3 before 3rd District Judge Sheila McCleve.

As part of a plea bargain, the child charge was reduced from a second-degree felony, and six other counts of second-degree felony child abuse were dismissed.

Crispin was arrested in January after doctors found multiple cuts and bruises, broken bones and missing patches of hair on a 2-year-old girl, who was Crispin's girlfriend's daughter. The child's eyes had chemical burns and were swollen shut, and she also had missing teeth, prompting one police official to remark that it looked as if someone had gone after the toddler with a weed-whacker.

The child's mother, Amy Eileen Roberts, 30, pleaded guilty in August to third-degree felony obstruction of justice and class A misdemeanor child abuse. Roberts is set to be sentenced Oct. 6.

E-mail: lindat@desnews.com