Charges against Koltyn’s babysitter upheld
Ex-boyfriend of mom will face trial; her ruling postponed
Tuolumne County Superior Court Judge Donald Segerstrom ruled Tuesday that a Sonora man who was caretaking 23-month-old Koltyn Sparks-blackwood in the hours before the toddler’s death more than two years ago could be held on trial for second-degree murder, though he postponed ruling on a child endangerment charge against the mother until Friday.
Segerstrom said he believed it was a “resounding yes” to suspect Joseph Maloney, the former boyfriend of the accused mother, Nicole Sparks, because Koltyn sustained “broad infliction of trauma on the stomach” that either caused or contributed to his death.
“This is a small, 23-month-old child and there is clearly a large amount of force being used,” Segerstrom said. “A reasonable person would believe that to do that requires a conscious indifference to human life.”
Segerstrom upheld all the charges against Maloney: second-degree murder, assault on a child causing death, child abuse under circumstances likely to cause great bodily injury, and an enhancement of causing great bodily injury to a child under 5. Maloney faces up to 25 years to life in prison if convicted, according to the District Attorney’s Office.
The crux of Segerstrom’s ruling was upholding the admissibility of physician witnesses to opine on Koltyn’s cause of death based on hearsay medical findings during lifesaving efforts and autopsy examinations of the toddler.
Robert Schell, an attorney from Amador County who’s defending Maloney, had sought to discount much of their assertions as hearsay and not admissible because the physicians did not perform the examinations, tests or observations on Koltyn themselves and
in-person, but relied on the reports of others.
Throughout the hearing, Maloney sat beside Schell in a black-andwhite striped Tuolumne County Jail jumpsuit and blue mask. He bent his head toward his shackled hands on the counsel table and did not often watch the lawyers or the judge while they spoke.
Segerstrom, who had appeared more reluctant to uphold the charges against Sparks, said the allegations were too tenuous to have a ruling be made in the limited time window available to him over the lunch hour.
“I want to go back and go over all the evidence,” he said. “The court wants to take its time, be deliberative.”
Sparks, of Waterford, sat with her Sonorabased attorney, David Beyersdorf, along a partition dividing the public seating from the attorneys. Beyersdorf argued during his remarks that Sparks made an admirable effort to assist her son and that the prosecution was “moving” the criminal metrics to hold her responsible.
Testimony in the preliminary hearing, which determines if the prosecution has enough evidence to bring charges against a defendant to trial, concluded just after 9 a.m. Tuesday. The prosecution had called three doctors, one Stanislaus County Sheriff’s deputy, and three additional law enforcement officers who were with the Sonora Police Department at the time of Koltyn’s death to testify.
The hearing lasted almost four days and began the previous Thursday.
No witnesses were called by the defense attorneys.
“There is no medical or accidental explanation for what happened to Koltyn,” Tuolumne County Deputy District Attorney Cassandra Jenecke said. “There is no other reasonable explanation for the injuries Koltyn sustained.”
Jenecke argued that Koltyn was not completely well when he was left in Maloney’s care on Jan. 14, 2019, but his condition was improving.
“We have a kid who’s not at his baseline,” she said, “but what we do have, your honor, is a timeline of him getting better.”
Jenecke argued that his condition shifted fatally for the worse in the evening of Jan. 14, 2019 while he was alone with Maloney and less than a couple hours before Sparks arrived at his home on South Shepherd Street after working her shift at Chicken Ranch Casino.
“We don’t have an admission from anybody about how Koltyn was hurt,” she said. “It’s not until he’s in the exclusive care of Maloney” that the injuries were inflicted.
Schell had sought to undercut the prosecution at multiple angles, suggesting the testimonial evidence from some of their witnesses was not allowed in court and that a suggestion of Maloney deliberately inflicting blunt force trauma on Koltyn was conjectural.
“There are no statements from the defendant that show culpability,” he said. “There’s nothing but an injury and speculation.”
Schell had suggested that the testimony provided by Dr. Julia Magana, an emergency pediatric physician at UC Davis Medical Center in Sacramento, was hearsay and therefore not admissible as evidence because she evaluated medical findings made by other doctors in her conclusion.
Schell also asserted the same objection against Dr. John Tovar, a forensic pathologist for Sacramento County hired by the prosecution to evaluate the medical reports produced on Koltyn and come to his own conclusion on the cause of death.
The doctors suggested that abusive head trauma, also known as shaken baby syndrome, caused hemorrhaging in the brain which led to Koltyn’s death.
Dr. Michael Ferenc, who conducted the autopsy of Koltyn in Stanislaus County, instead argued the internal bleeding in the brain and elsewhere was due to blunt force trauma on the abdomen which caused lacerations to the liver.
“This is uncontroverted evidence,” Jenecke said of the blunt force trauma, noting also that the doctors observed the same symptoms on Koltyn, but just reached different conclusions as to the cause of death.
Further implicating Maloney, Jenecke said, was the fact that the injuries were all found by the physicians to be recently inflicted.
Schell further described the accusation against Maloney as “bad fortune” and the result of grieffueled animus by Koltyn’s extended family.
“They’re going to point to someone and they’re going to be angry,” Schell said, “but that’s not the same thing as evidence.”
Jenecke characterized Sparks as criminally negligent, citing testimony where Maloney was alleged to have handled children roughly in the past and told her Koltyn was “limp” on the couch hours before he died. Once Sparks received that text, she should have returned home to check on the child and take him to a hospital, Jenecke argued.
“Minutes mattered,” she said. “Her failure to act permitted Koltyn to be in danger.”
Segerstrom appeared to express reservations about that conclusion, questioning how Sparks was expected to know her child sustained lifethreatening injuries while at work.
Segerstrom said Maloney told Sparks that Koltyn was sleeping and testimony from the hearing indicated she saw him with his chest rising and falling when she returned home, and she also attempted to wake him with a touch on the feet, snapping sounds and a shower.
Beyersdorf said the prosecution’s argument “falls short” of a criminal act. He said when she realized Koltyn was actually endangered, she did what a reasonable person would do to save him.
“She’s taking steps to figure it out,” he said. “That’s what a parent should do.”
Segerstrom scheduled an arraignment on the information, a hearing where Maloney will again enter a plea, for 1:15 p.m. March 19 in Department 1 of the Tuolumne County Superior Court.
Segerstrom said he will make a ruling on Sparks at 11 a.m. Friday in Department 1.