A Brooklyn man was sentenced to up to a decade in prison after admitting to killing his girlfriend's infant daughter who started crying as he was playing video games, according to the district attorney.
Ricardo Price was babysitting 4-month-old Royalty Kemp in an apartment on Lewis Avenue in Bed-Stuy on June 22, 2021, after the girl's mother left her with him for the night, the DA's office said. Royalty was sitting in the 26-year-old Price's lap when she started to cry, according to an investigation.
Price then shook his leg repeatedly in an effort to get her to stop crying as he was playing a video game. The infant bounced off his knee multiple times as he did so, and her head hit the controller Price had in his hands, the investigation found.The next day, the young child's mother came back and saw her daughter was lethargic and unable to eat, and became unresponsive later that afternoon, according to the investigation.
The mother took Royalty to Woodhull Medical Center, where doctors found she had suffered a skull fracture. The infant was transferred to Bellevue Hospital where she died on July 2. According to an autopsy performed by the NYC medical examiner's office, Royalty died from abusive head trauma that included a number of injuries, including skull fractures with underlying hemorrhages to the brain and parts of the spinal cord.Price was charged with second-degree manslaughter and pleaded guilty on April 12, 2024. On Friday, he was sentenced to at least 40 months in prison, and could spend up to 10 years behind bars.