EVERETT — An Everett man was sentenced to nearly six years in prison this week for abusing a toddler to the brink of death while he was babysitting in 2019.
In April, after pleading not guilty to second-degree assault of a child, Vashawn Basnight waived his right to a jury, resulting in a bench trial.
On Monday, Snohomish County Superior Court Judge Karen Moore handed Basnight, 37, a guilty verdict.
Given Basnight had no criminal history, the standard sentencing range was just over 2½ to just under 3½ years in prison. Both prosecutors and the defense recommended a five-year sentence, above that standard range.
“Given her young age, she was clearly more vulnerable than the typical victim of such a crime,” deputy prosecutor Jarett Goodkin wrote to the court.
“Vashawn maintains to this day that he never struck or injured (the child),” defense attorney Sam Sommerman wrote to the court. “He does, however, feel tremendous remorse for misleading the police at the beginning of their investigation, and for any part that his negligence may have played in (the child’s) injuries.”
The Everett man covered up the abuse with the help of his girlfriend, prosecutors argued.
“Our family has gone through a trial, and today we are spared this long emotional pain of reliving this brutal beating,” the toddler’s grandmother wrote in a statement to the court.
On an October morning in 2019, the toddler’s mom dropped her off at the babysitter’s home in south Everett.
Basnight’s girlfriend had been babysitting the child for about six months, court documents say. The defendant reportedly only watched the toddler with her on occasion. He told investigators he had only changed her diapers that day.
Hours later when her mom picked her up, the 16-month-old girl seemed lethargic, the report says. At home, the child sat down on a training toilet and flopped forward, unable to support herself. Her mother looked closer and saw a large bruise starting to show on the girl’s left temple and a red line along her neck.
In an interview with detectives, Basnight and his girlfriend claimed the child may have fallen off the couch and onto a “large plastic toy” that afternoon, according to charging papers.
The girl’s parents rushed her to Swedish Mill Creek with a bruised forehead and “an altered level of consciousness,” the charges say. A CT scan found the toddler had a subdural hematoma and a bruise to the scalp from a “non-accidental head injury.”
Doctors told investigators the toddler would have taken a minimum of “two forceful blows” that would have caused her severe injuries, according to court documents.
Upon learning of the child’s injuries, the babysitter later reported she went to sleep shortly after the toddler was dropped off and left Basnight in charge, court papers say.
When investigators obtained the girlfriend’s phone, they found a text message from Basnight claiming the girl fell off the couch and that another child hit her with a book, the charges say.
The girlfriend later reported noticing the bruises on the child before her mom picked her up. But it had not “crossed her mind” that Basnight could have hurt the child.
Doctors determined the girl will be able to walk, but may suffer from long-term cognitive issues. The detective wrote the girl “would not be the same child that she would have been had she not been assaulted.”
In February 2020, police arrested Basnight. Initially, prosecutors charged him with first-degree assault of a child, but that was later downgraded.
Basnight and his girlfriend have four kids together, one of whom is about the same age as the toddler, the defense wrote to the court.
“He and (his partner) have been together through everything, thick and thin,” Sommerman wrote. “Vashawn takes extreme pride that his children only have one mother and only known one father.”
Basnight’s legal process was long postponed due to COVID-19 in 2020.
“I feel in some ways, we are suspended in time and forced to languish in our grief at the lack of justice served to the man who abused and assaulted my daughter,” the toddler’s mother wrote in 2021. “As the mother of a victim who cannot advocate or speak for herself, I come to you on her behalf.”
Maya Tizon: 425-339-3434; maya.tizon@heraldnet.com; Twitter: @mayatizon.
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