Man gets prison time in baby’s death

Tuesday, Feb. 1, 2000 | 12:32 p.m.

A Las Vegas man has been sentenced to six to 26 years in prison for the child abuse death of his 1-month-old daughter.

Lawrence Motti said in court Monday that he doesn't know what happened the day his daughter suffered a fractured skull.

"I would never have hurt my child. I could never have killed my child," he said Monday as he pleaded with District Judge Kathy Hardcastle for leniency. "She was the light of my life that was put out."

But Deputy District Attorney Doug Herndon noted that there were several bite marks on the abdomen of Frances Motti that were matched to the 30-year-old father through comparisons with his teeth.

There also was a November arrest on domestic violence charges. The judge in pronouncing the sentence said a good father wouldn't bite his infant daughter and a nonviolent man wouldn't be facing domestic battery charges.

Motti pleaded guilty last year to child abuse and voluntary manslaughter in the Jan. 7, 1997, death but did so under a legal provision that does not require him to admit responsibility for the crime.

The baby's death occurred almost a year after Motti, then a Sahara hotel-casino security guard, was praised as a hero in the shooting death of a man who had just killed his ex-wife in the resort's employee parking lot.