Cary man pleads guilty to injuring infant son, gets 4-year prison sentence

A Cary man pleaded guilty Tuesday to injuring his infant son and was sentenced to four years in prison.

Tristan Johnson, 23, pleaded guilty to one count of aggravated battery of a child younger than 13 causing bodily harm, a Class 3 felony, prosecutors and documents in McHenry County court said.

In exchange for the guilty plea, other charges were dismissed, including an additional and more serious Class X count of aggravated battery of a child under the age of 13. Had he been convicted on the Class X charge, he could have faced up to 30 years in prison.

He is required to serve half his prison term and will receive credit for 578 days in the county jail as well as any additional days until he is transported to custody of the Illinois Department of Corrections, Judge Tiffany Davis said. When released from prison he will serve six months of mandatory supervised release.

In court Tuesday, Assistant State’s Attorney Ashley Romito read from a document that said on or about the evening of June 15, 2023, Johnson was the primary caretaker of the month-old infant when a “slight bruise” was found on his arm.

On June 22, the child was taken to the hospital for treatment after he started having seizures. There, the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services became involved and Cary police were called, police said at the time of Johnson’s arrest.

His attorney, Brian Stevens, said Tuesday after court that the child has recovered from his injuries and is in foster care.

Johnson, arrested prior to the SAFE-T Act and held on $500,000 bond since, was initially accused of fracturing the baby’s arm and causing a subdural hematoma, which was believed to have resulted in the seizures, the criminal complaint and indictment said.

Of the sentence, Stevens said the state and court “took into consideration Tristan accepting responsibility for his role in this matter.” The attorney said since Johnson’s arrest, he has “worked diligently in completing parenting classes, including the comprehensive faith-based Malachi Dads program.”

When the SAFE-T Act took effect in 2023, Stevens argued for Johnson to be released from the county jail under the new law. Stevens said the state based its argument for detention on “a lengthy and coercive interrogation by police, where my client asked multiple times if he could go home.”

Johnson provided details to police “to the best of his recollection.” Police told him they didn’t believe him, Stevens said.

“Ultimately,” Stevens said, Johnson provided a statement “that fit their theory of the case.”

In denying his pretrial release, Davis wrote in her ruling that she considered Johnson’s past criminal history and arrest for domestic violence, for which he was on pretrial release at the time the child was injured.

The judge said she also considered his mental health. Noting Johnson, who served as a U.S. Marine and a Reservist, has a history of depression and has been admitted to a psychiatric hospital. She considered the threat to the baby as well as the person named in the domestic violence case, she said at the time.

The judge said she also considered “several inconsistent statements” that Johnson made in text messages as to how the baby was injured. He made admissions, then denials, that he “knew anything” about his injuries, she said. He also made statements that “he needed help and didn’t want it to happen again,” the judge wrote.

Sometime between June 15 and June 22, Johnson injured the baby by fracturing his arm by “reckless actions of manipulating the child and caused the need for the child to be taken to the hospital for medical care,” according to the criminal complaint.

He also was accused of “holding the child around the child’s torso and rocking the child side-to-side in an aggressive manner without supporting the child’s neck and head in a way to cause an injury to the child’s head and brain,” according to the complaint.

Police learned that the child had been taken to Advocate Good Shepherd Hospital in the Barrington area by a parent the evening of June 22 after he started experiencing seizures or a similar medical event, police said.

The child then was taken to Advocate Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge, where he was placed in the pediatric intensive care unit for more advanced medical care.

It was learned that the child suffered a broken arm and a brain injury, which prompted the criminal investigation into the child’s injuries, police said.