Elgin man seeks to undo guilty plea in shaken baby case
An Elgin man accused in a 2016 shaken baby attack wants to withdraw his guilty plea, arguing he didn't have time to weigh all his options with his family because he was in jail.
Anthony B. Briden, 24, of the 400 block of South Belmont Avenue, was arrested and charged in mid-March 2016 with four counts of aggravated battery causing great bodily harm to a child under 13 and with two counts of aggravated domestic battery, all felonies, according to Kane County court records.
He was accused shaking a 7-week-old child, causing trauma to the head and body and permanent and substantial injuries that require 24-hour care, according to court records and prosecutors. The child turned 3 years old last month.
In December 2018, on the eve of trial, Briden pleaded guilty to one count each of aggravated battery causing great bodily harm to a child under 13 and aggravated domestic battery. The most severe charge carried a prison term of six to 30 years.
Briden made what is known as a "cold" or "blind" plea, in which a defendant admits guilt without an agreed upon punishment with prosecutors and instead leaves the sentence in the hands of a judge, in this case John Barsanti.
In early January, though, Briden's attorney, Assistant Public Defender Ron Dolak, petitioned Barsanti to vacate Briden's guilty plea. Under state law, a defendant has up to 30 days to reconsider a guilty plea.
"The defendant was under a great amount of stress as trial approached and only had 24 hours to decide whether to plead guilty or proceed to trial," Briden's motion read. "During those 24 hours, the defendant had limited access to communicate with his family as he was in custody."
Barsanti will hear arguments from Briden's new lawyer, Kenneth Johnson, on April 18. If the motion is denied, Briden will be sentenced that day. If the motion is granted, Briden will likely head to trial at a future date.
Briden has been held at the Kane County jail since his arrest in mid-March 2016 on $300,000 bail.
At the time of his arrest, he was on probation from a December 2014 case in St. Charles in which he was arrested and charged with felony unlawful restraint and domestic battery of a woman he knew, records show. He pleaded guilty to domestic battery in exchange for other charges being dismissed and was sentenced to 24 months probation through February 2018.
Briden received two years' probation and 26 weeks of domestic violence counseling and was ordered to get a job and his GED after pleading guilty to resisting arrest in a July 2012 incident in Batavia, records show. He was charging with choking a police officer during a domestic complaint involving a man he knew, but that felony charge was dismissed as part of his guilty plea, records show.