A Hiawatha, Kansas man was sentenced this week for the serious beating of a two-year-old child last August.

As we reported earlier, Frank Lee Rodriguez was found guilty after a bench trial in January. Rodriguez, 25, initially denied hitting the youngster, but then told Hiawatha police the child was not eating and he got upset, slamming the toddler onto the floor and punching her in the head.

The child spent more than three months in intensive care at Children’s Mercy Hospital before being released last December.

On Monday, Brown County District Judge John Weingart ordered Rodriguez to serve 52 months for aggravated battery, and an additional 34 months for felony abuse of a child, for a total sentence of more than seven years.