Man Pleads Guilty to Critically Injuring Infant

ST. CLOUD -- A Buffalo man has pleaded guilty to assaulting an infant in Waite Park. Twenty-two-year-old Cody Anderson pleaded guilty Thursday to one count of 1st-degree assault.

Waite Park Police officers responded to a medical emergency in the 1200 block of 7th Street South last March. Officers found a six-month-old child unconscious and having difficulty breathing. The baby was taken to St. Cloud Hospital and later to HCMC in Minneapolis for emergency surgery.

According to the criminal complaint, the child was suffering from bleeding on the brain and doctors determined the injuries to be consistent with abuse.

Anderson admitted he was the child's caregiver the night before, that the child was fussy, and that he had drunk three-fourths of a bottle of whiskey.

He will be sentenced to between 6-years and 8-and-a-half-years in prison at a hearing in March.