Cortez Found Guilty Jury Convicts Man Of Abusing Girlfriend’s Child, Who Died

Federico Cortez stared at the 12 jurors Friday as, one by one, they announced their verdict - guilty of injury to a child.

It is the second time in two months a North Idaho man has been convicted of abusing his girlfriend’s child to the point that the child died of severe brain injuries.

In April, a jury convicted Kevin Merwin in the death of his girlfriend’s 2-1/2-year-old son.

On Friday, a jury decided Cortez was responsible for the death of 2-year-old Christina Campanelli - a girl whose brain was bleeding and body was marred with bruises when doctors examined her.

“We know the defendant is the only one who could have inflicted these injuries,” Lansing Haynes, Kootenai County chief deputy prosecutor, told the jury. “I’m asking you to hold him responsible.”

Cortez’s friends and family shook their heads and wiped away tears, hugging the convicted man after hearing the verdict. Cortez said little, although he angrily criticized Judge James Judd’s handling of the trial.

“The judge was repeatedly stepping in front of our defense,” Cortez told the people around him.

The dead girl’s mother, Eileen Campanelli, was not present for the verdict. She is expected to stand trial on the same charge next month.

Christina Campanelli died Sept. 24, 1995. The child, her 5-year-old sister Maria and her mother had been living with Cortez at his home in Rathdrum.

On the afternoon of Sept. 19, Eileen Campanelli left her children with Cortez to go to a party and didn’t return until 11:30 p.m.

The next morning, the two adults could not awaken Christina.

Doctors found her with a broken leg and bruises on her back, arms, face and feet. They also found swelling and bleeding in her brain and bleeding in the back of her eyes.

Unlike the Merwin case, the defense did not dispute whether the child was abused. Several doctors testified that Christina was severely shaken and most likely slammed into something hard.

Both Cortez and Campanelli were charged with felony injury to a child. Because prosecutors could not be sure which adult inflicted the injury, they charged both adults with “causing or permitting” the child to be severely injured or permitting the child “to be placed in a situation endangering her health.”

The five-day trial pitted the former couple against each other. Campanelli testified against her former boyfriend, claiming he admitted killing the child by accident. The prosecutor contended Cortez injured the child before Campanelli came home from the party. And Cortez’s attorney, Tim Gresback, accused the mother of killing the girl. Gresback tried to show that the 32-year-old Hayden woman attacked the girl during the night without Cortez hearing it.

Gresback set out to prove his point by presenting Campanelli’s lengthy history of child abuse.

Judd would not allow all of the defense’s evidence to be presented at the trial, although he did allow several people to testify about the mother’s violence toward her children.

Barri Bumbaugh, a 15-year-old girl who baby-sat for the woman, described watching Campanelli drag Christina down a flight of stairs, “her head banging up against the wall.”

Bumbaugh also said she watched as, in a fit of anger, Campanelli roughly threw the toddler in a crib.

“She almost looked possessed,” Bumbaugh testified.

But Haynes pointed out that Campanelli could not have beaten the child to near death that night without Cortez hearing it. And if he did hear it, then why didn’t he tell police about it?

Witnesses also detailed the prior abuse of Christina by Cortez.

Christina Caetano, who also babysat the children, sobbed as she described the girl’s injuries.

“Her whole bottom was bruised,” she said Friday. “It looked real bad. You couldn’t see any normal color to her bottom.”

Caetano said she confronted Cortez. “He said, ‘I know it looks bad and I hit her too hard but it was only three swats open handed and it’s not going to happen again,”’ Caetano testified. “He said he felt children have to fear their parents in order to get their respect.”

The jurors - 10 women and two men - deliberated four hours before returning their verdict.

Cortez faces up to 10 years in prison. He will be free on bail until his scheduled sentencing on Oct. 8.

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