One found guilty, another acquitted of injuring toddler

PALMER — A jury has decided that Shannon Silook’s baby arrived at an emergency room in November 2009 as a result of abuse.

But Silook, now 26, didn’t commit the abuse.

Instead, jurors Monday convicted her 24-year-old boyfriend Michael Ponte of assault last week.

“The jury returned a verdict late yesterday,” Assistant District Attorney Trina Sears says in an email Tuesday. “Michael Ponte was found guilty of assault in the first (degree) and assault in the second degree. Shannon Silook was found guilty of hindering prosecution in the first degree, but found not guilty of assault.”

Hindering prosecution generally relates to interfering with a law enforcement investigation, either through not telling the truth or by withholding evidence.

The 3-year-old child at the center of the trial ended up having seizures and was hospitalized with traumatic brain injuries.

The trial had been one of competing diagnoses. Doctors testifying for the prosecution told jurors the baby had classic signs of an abusive head trauma. The kind of injury to the child’s brain is not the type one sees with accidents unless it was some kind of high-speed collision into an unyielding object; a car crash, for example. No such accident had been reported.

Meanwhile, defense attorneys — Jon-Marc Petersen for Silook and Greg Parvin for Ponte — argued those doctors were mistaken.

A doctor the defense flew in from out of state testified that the brain injury could easily have resulted from an accident. The child had been hospitalized with a previous brain injury, which the defense expert said made him or her much more likely to suffer a future brain injury. Science, the doctor testified, also has shown that this kind of injury can result from a simple fall. The girl had reportedly been sledding before she was hospitalized.

Silook and Ponte are set to receive their sentences April 19. Silook, has made bail and is not in jail. Ponte, meanwhile, was listed as an inmate of the Mat-Su Pre-Trial Facility as of Thursday afternoon.

Contact reporter Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.