A Rincon man accused of brutally beating his girlfriend’s 2-year-old daughter pleaded guilty Tuesday and was sentenced to 40 years in prison.
The girlfriend pleaded guilty to making false statements and was sentenced to five years of probation.
Robert Christopher Edwards, 25, pleaded guilty to aggravated battery and two counts of aggravated assault in the Aug. 13, 2013, beating of the child at a house on Holly Lane.
Effingham County Superior Court Judge F. Gates Peed sentenced Edwards on the charges. Additional charges, including cruelty to children and obstruction of an officer, were dropped.
Edwards had faced as much as 115 years in jail, court records indicate.
"I am happy to see someone who inflicted bodily harm to an innocent child get sentenced to jail for a majority of his life," said David Ehsanipoor, a sheriff’s spokesman who investigated the case.
Edwards’ girlfriend, Sabrina Dawn Saunders, 22, pleaded guilty under the first offender act to making false statements. Charges of cruelty to children and obstruction of an officer were dropped.
She was accused of intentionally delaying medical attention for her daughter after the child suffered a head injury in an accident on an all-terrain vehicle.
In addition to the five years of probation, Saunders was sentenced to 60 days in jail, a $1,000 fine, 240 hours community service and parenting classes.
She had faced as much as five years in prison for the charges.