"I feel really bad for everything that has happened," Juan Pablo Garcia-Miranda, 22, told Judge Claudia Laycock through an interpreter. "I know I have caused damage to some people. . . . I want to ask forgiveness."

But Laycock noted the child suffered permanent brain damage and had to relearn to walk. The extent of the damage will not be known until she begins school, the judge said.

For days after the Feb. 16 incident, the girl was in a drug-induced coma and on life support; doctors did not know whether she would live.

"What happened to my daughter was something terrible," the girl's 20-year-old mother told Laycock, also through an interpreter. "My little girl is not a normal girl - she has to have surgeries.

"What am I going to say to her when she's older and she asks?" the woman said. "If it depended on me, he could stay in jail and rot in jail. If once I loved him, now I hate him with all my heart."

Initially charged with attempted murder, Garcia-Miranda pleaded guilty last month to aggravated sexual assault, a first-degree felony, and child abuse, a second-degree felony.

Orem police Sgt. Gordon Smith, who was assigned to the case, told Laycock it was the worst case of child sexual and physical abuse he has seen in his 15 years in law enforcement.

"I've seen a lot, and this was shocking to me," he said. "This shouldn't have happened to this little girl. She doesn't deserve this."

Asked why he mistreated the child, Smith said Garcia-Miranda told him that unlike an infant he shares with the woman, the 2-year-old was "not my daughter."

Defense attorney Gunda Jarvis said the girl's injuries occurred in a "moment of anger that changed many lives.

"This man is not a horrible person," Jarvis said. "He made a large mistake. . . . This will never happen again."

Laycock, however, said she has worked on cases involving head injuries and is aware of the amount of force it would take to cause such an injury, adding a doctor has said the girl's injuries were the equivalent of falling three floors onto concrete.

"I think it's more than just a mistake on his part," she said.

Garcia-Miranda was arrested after he brought the unconscious girl to an Orem hospital emergency room. Although she was breathing, police said, she had a fractured skull and the bleeding was putting pressure on her brain.

"Mr. Garcia is an extremely dangerous individual," said prosecutor Donna Kelly. "He doesn't believe he needs treatment of any kind . . . he continues to lie about what happened, what he did to this child."

aebroughton@sltrib.com