San Jose father sentenced to 25 years-to-life in prison for 2020 killing of infant daughter, DA says

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- A San Jose man was sentenced to 25 years-to-life in prison Friday for killing his infant daughter by striking her so hard across the face that she suffered brain damage, prosecutors said.

Jesse Manuel Figueroa, 36, was babysitting 8-month-old Raina when he took the child to a Mountain View fire station on July 4, 2020, according to the Santa Clara County District Attorney's Office.

Figueroa told police he was taking her to a family barbecue when she mysteriously fell unconscious and blood began seeping from her nose, prosecutors said.

She was taken to Lucile Packard Children's Hospital Stanford where a bruise developed on the child's left cheek "in the distinctive shape and size of an adult hand," according to prosecutors.

An autopsy found that the blow caused her brain to shift inside her skull and ruled her death a homicide, prosecutors said.

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"Raina would have been 6 years old today instead of a name on a murder case," District Attorney Jeff Rosen said in a press release. "These cases break our hearts, at the brutality, at the senselessness, at the sheer loss of an innocent child."

Evidence at his trial showed that Figueroa had repeatedly beaten and strangled his girlfriend, Raina's mother, and abused their other two children, ages 2 and 3, including by forcing them to kneel on rice, prosecutors said.

At the time of the murder, he was under a restraining order that prohibited him from having any unsupervised visits with Raina, the District Attorney's Office said.

"The baby's grandfather wrote in an impact statement: 'Raina mattered. Her life mattered. She was not just a name in a case file. She was a baby who was deeply loved and who should still be here today,'" prosecutors said.