A local couple pleaded no contest Thursday to charges that they ignored an infant girl's need for medical attention, resulting in the child's death in 2009.

Jose R. Colon and Holly Steffy, both 24, pleaded no contest to felony counts of endangering a child and conspiracy.

The no contest plea means Colon and Steffy are not admitting the charges but concede there is enough evidence to convict them.

Doctors said 4-month-old Sanayah Colon, who died Oct. 24, 2009, had suffered dozens of rib fractures, a spinal cord fracture and numerous other injuries.

Sanayah was one of Steffy's two young children. Colon was a caregiver to the child, according to testimony.

Witnesses told police that Sanayah received little care from the couple. They told police the girl looked like an "Ethiopian child" because she was so thin.

They did not feed the girl, according to police.

"She basically gained only a pound from her birth to her time of death," Lancaster County Judge James Cullen said during Thursday's hearings.

Steffy's attorney, Andrew Spade, told the judge that his client "accepts that the commonwealth certainly has sufficient evidence to convict at trial."

Colon and Steffy will be sentenced on March 1. Colon faces a maximum 14-year prison term; Steffy faces a maximum sentence of 21 years.

Both avoided homicide charges because an autopsy failed to tie her death to a specific event.

The child died of asphyxia, or suffocation, the autopsy showed. However, investigators and medical personnel couldn't link the death to a specific beating or abusive event.

The autopsy report did show that the child suffered numerous injuries that were not sustained accidentally.

Among those injuries were 31 rib fractures, a fractured spine, a broken collarbone and a broken elbow and arm, according to court testimony.

Colon and Steffy were expected to go to trial on Monday, but told their attorneys Thursday morning they wanted to plead.

In exchange for the no-contest pleas, Assistant District Attorney Randall L. Miller agreed not to request maximum sentences. The judge, however, noted that the agreement does not mean he can't impose the maximum.

Colon and Steffy reserved comment until sentencing, although Colon did ask the judge if his $1 million bail could be lowered. The judge declined.

Colon, wearing a green prison jumpsuit, also told Cullen that he has three children of his own and was working at a donut shop when he was arrested in June 2011.

Steffy was charged with an additional felony offense because she was Sanayah's mother and had an obligation to feed and care for her.

The child was injured between Sept. 1 and Oct. 24 of 2009, at a home in the 300 block of Winthrop Drive, police allege.

The injuries would have been caused by direct blows or bending the child's arm's or by slamming the child down, a local doctor determined. The doctor said the child's pain would have been "constant" and "tremendous."

Charges were filed two years later after a set of grand jury hearings.
bhambright@lnpnews.com