MICHAEL TINO - 8 Months - Dodge City KS

A Dodge City woman accused of seriously injuring her infant son pleaded no contest Thursday to child abuse and aggravated child endangerment.
Flory M. Tino could be ordered to serve between 31 and 136 months in prison for child abuse, plus five to 17 months for child endangerment. The actual sentence will depend on her criminal history, which has not been determined yet.
Tino will return to court for sentencing after a pre-sentence report is completed.
The child-abuse charge stemmed from allegations that Tino had severely shaken her 8-month-old son, Michael Tino, on March 27.
Assistant Ford County Attorney David Belling said Tino was living with a man named Tomas Gutierrez, who had called 911 that day to report that Michael had stopped breathing. The child was taken to Western Plains Medical Complex and later airlifted to Wichita for treatment.
A Wichita physician determined that he had suffered a traumatic brain injury and other injuries suggesting that he had been violently shaken.
"The defendant's given various stories as to how those injuries occurred and who was or what not there," Belling said.
He added that the physician would testify that the child's injuries were deliberately inflicted, not accidental.

Confusion
Some confusion arose when Magistrate Judge Michael Freelove asked Tino for her plea to the child endangerment charge, which stemmed from allegations that Gutierrez had harmed Michael in the months leading up to the brain injury.
Belling said Gutierrez had been around Michael for several months before he suffered the brain injury, and Tino had heard "boom, boom" sounds whenever Gutierrez was with the boy. But she continued living with Gutierrez and did not report the sounds to authorities.
Belling also said Tino had seen Gutierrez shake her child to stop him from crying at least three times. The last time, she called an ambulance and reported that the shaking was much worse than it had been before.
But Tino, who has a second-grade education and does not speak English, apparently did not realize that she could be charged with child endangerment, even if someone else had injured her son.
Tino originally pleaded not guilty to the endangerment charge, which would have meant going to trial.
But after Belling explained the facts behind the charge, Tino switched to a no-contest plea.
Tino's attorney, Linda Eckelman, said the problem was that Tino did not grasp the nuances of child endangerment at first.
In a separate case, Gutierrez has been charged with child abuse, identity theft, ID fraud and perjury. He will appear in court for a docket preliminary hearing — essentially, a scheduling matter — next Thursday.