A former U.S. Army sergeant has been sentenced to 12 years in prison, followed by four years of supervised release, after
scalding his 2-month-old son
and failing to seek medical care for days, federal prosecutors said.
Andrew J. Garasich, 29, of Westmoreland, Pa., “severely burned his baby by bathing him in water so hot that the baby’s skin peeled off his body,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Tennessee said in a news release.
The incident occurred in late 2022, while Garasich was serving as an
E-5 sergeant
stationed at
Fort Campbell,
a major Army installation situated on the border between northwestern Tennessee and western Kentucky.
Garasich and the infant’s mother, Lyndsey T. Bustamante, were
arrested by FBI agents in May 2023
after the pair was indicted by a federal grand jury on aggravated child neglect charges.
According to documents filed in court, then-27-year-old Bustamante took the child to Houston County Community Hospital in Tennessee on Jan. 4, 2023, and said the infant’s injuries were the result of a hot bath given by Garasich several days earlier.
The baby was then airlifted to Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital, where doctors also discovered a skull fracture, officials said.
In the pediatric ICU, the child was treated for organ failure and other life-threatening injuries, undergoing multiple surgeries and procedures — care that is expected to continue for years.
The baby did not receive medical attention until five days after the incident. According to prosecutors, Garasich didn’t accompany the infant to the hospital.
While the boy is now said to be “in a loving home,” he will face “lifelong struggles” due to Garasich’s actions, said Acting U.S. Attorney Robert E. McGuire.
“The victim in this case was a two-month-old child who was horribly neglected by the Defendant and barely survived,” McGuire said.
While Garasich had no criminal record, prosecutors said he was investigated by child welfare authorities in 2019 in a separate case involving another child — though they did not provide further details.
Bustamante is expected to be sentenced on Aug. 5, officials said.
