A father who starved his seven-year-old daughter for nearly a year until she died on Christmas Day has been sentenced to just five years behind bars.
Julius Fineday Sr, 42, ‘willfully deprived’ his daughter Jewel Sky Fineday of food and health care from January 1 to Christmas 2022, ‘despite being reasonably able to make the necessary provisions’, according to the US Attorney’s Office, District of Minnesota.
Fineday pleaded guilty to a count of felony child neglect causing death in March and was sentenced on Tuesday.
The dad neglected his daughter in ‘nearly every way’ possible, Chief Judge Patrick Schiltz said during the sentencing.
His daughter lacked nutrition, had head lice and had not seen a doctor in three years besides receiving coronavirus vaccines that came with cash incentives. Fineday also prevented his daughter from going to school, which provided meals.
The girl was ‘not just thin, but skeletal’, when she died, according to the judge.
Her cause of death was malnutrition and a Streptococcal infection from neglect.
Fineday, of Red Lake, was also slapped with two years of supervised release for child neglect, stated US Attorney Andrew Luger.
The court acknowledged that Fineday’s ‘demonstration of sincere remorse by pleading guilty in advance of trial and without a plea agreement was a significant mitigating factor which weighed against an even longer sentence’, prosecutors stated.
Schiltz stated that Fineday’s sentence should indicate to other caregivers that ‘neglecting or abusing a child will result in negative consequences not only for the child, but also the responsible adult’.
The judge urged them to ‘pick up the phone’ and ask for help when unable to provide for a child’s basic needs.
Fineday was sentenced just over a month after a New Jersey dad was found guilty of aggravated manslaughter and child endangerment in the death of his six-year-old son whom he forced to run on a treadmill ‘because he was too fat’.
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