08:46 PM CDT on Wednesday, May 24, 2006

By Peggy O'Hare / The Houston Chronicle

A Houston mother whose infant daughter was viciously brutalized from head to toe was sentenced Wednesday to seven years in prison after a jury convicted her on a lesser charge of injuring the child.

Donna Marie Norman, 20, fared better than her former common-law husband, Ivan Emmanuel Castaneda, 23, who was sentenced to life in prison last year for the horrific injuries suffered by their daughter, Hailey Castaneda.

Norman showed no reaction when a jury in state District Judge Brock Thomas’ court announced her sentence  following a weeklong trial. She must serve a quarter of her sentence before she becomes eligible for parole.

Because Norman has been in jail for nearly 16 months while waiting for her case to go to trial, she could become eligible for parole in a matter of months, said one of her attorneys, Brett Podolsky.

Her daughter, now 22 months old, is living with a foster family who plans to adopt her and her sister.

The child’s injuries were discovered on Feb. 2, 2005, after Norman drove her to a hospital emergency room from the family’s home in the 1100 block of Gargan.

Just 6 months old at the time, the little girl had suffered immense brutality. All of her major bones were broken, and her kidneys, liver and pancreas were damaged. The baby’s tongue also was nearly severed, although she didn’t have any teeth.

Her sister, then 15 months old, also had healing fractures to her skull and ribs. She had previously suffered a severely broken leg when she was just 1 month old.

Castaneda, who was the father of both little girls, was convicted by a jury in November of intentionally and knowingly causing serious bodily injury to his youngest daughter, a first-degree felony offense. Jurors gave him the maximum punishment,  life in prison.

Though Norman was tried on the same charge, jurors opted to find her guilty of a lesser offense - intentionally and knowingly causing bodily injury - a third-degree felony carrying a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison.

Norman’s attorneys portrayed her as a loving mother who tried to protect her daughters from abuse, but said she herself was terrorized by the children’s father and her cries for help went unanswered.

Defense attorney Jerald Graber repeatedly referred to  Castaneda as a “monster” and a “beast.” He noted Castaneda’s own family members testified that Norman was loving and tender toward her children.

“It is not a crime in the state of Texas to try to protect your children from the abuser and ultimately fail,” Graber said Wednesday. “You know in this case that Donna tried.”

Graber pushed for probation, arguing that Norman was not a danger to society and emphasized she helped prosecutors with their investigation despite being granted no promises of leniency.

But prosecutors countered Norman was just as responsible as Castaneda for their younger daughter’s injuries and that she failed to take appropriate action to stop Castaneda’s abuse in the weeks before the final beating.

“She clearly was responsible for protecting Hailey, and she didn’t ... Donna Marie Norman stunk as a mother. She was a horrible mother,” said Harris County prosecutor Kari Allen.

Norman also had lied to Child Protective Services about how her older daughter once suffered a broken bone so the children would be returned to her, Allen said.

“She brought those babies back into that house with her and Ivan while she knew he could (hurt them). She’s a wolf in sheep’s clothing,” Allen said.

Hailey Castaneda is thriving in her new family environment, although she shows signs of developmental delays, foster mother Zenia Ledezma told the jury.

The toddler has completed physical and occupational therapy, but she walks slowly and stumbles on any surface that isn’t level. She is not as verbal as other children her age and just started saying her third word.

The little girl’s damaged tongue also is more noticeable now that she’s older, and Ledezma said she has talked to a doctor about performing corrective surgery so the wound doesn’t affect her self-esteem later in life.