POCATELLO — A Pocatello man accused of causing at least one severe brain injury to his 3-month-old daughter in April faces up to a decade in prison if convicted.

Kory Robert Prescott, 36, has been charged with one count of felony injury to a child for allegedly grabbing his infant daughter “above the waist and slamming her onto her back on a bed,” according to Pocatello Police Department records.

The alleged incident occurred on April 27 when Pocatello police received a call from Portneuf Medical Center staff about an infant girl who had been admitted for severe trauma to the head with internal bleeding. The child was flown by helicopter ambulance to Primary Children’s Hospital in Salt Lake City for further evaluation and potential surgery, police said.

Upon arriving at the hospital, police questioned both Prescott and the child’s mother, Mandalyn Robinson, 21, of Pocatello, who was Prescott’s girlfriend at the time.

Prescott initially told police that on the day of his daughter’s injury, he was watching the child while Robinson was at work. Prescott said that after he gave his daughter a bath around 9:30 a.m., the baby cried until he gave her a bottle a short time later. Prescott then told police the child fell asleep, police said.

Prescott told police that when the child woke up, she continued to cry and while Prescott was holding the baby she suddenly went “limp and unresponsive,” police said.

Prescott said that nothing out of the ordinary occurred that day and Robinson said she was unaware of any unusual occurrences because she was at work.

But while police were out in the hall speaking with hospital staff, Robinson left Prescott in the emergency room and entered the hall to tell police that on April 10 she had received a text message from her sister saying that she was concerned for the child’s safety while under Prescott’s watch.

The text message said the sister was worried Prescott might do something to the child out of frustration as this was his first child and he could not soothe the infant, police said.

Police asked Robinson to take a screenshot of the text message and provide it to detectives at a later date and ended the interview to allow the parents to travel to Utah with the child.

The diagnosis at PMC was consistent with injuries sustained when an infant is shaken and was not considered accidental, according to police records.

On May 1 and 4, police conducted additional interviews with Prescott, Robinson, Robinson’s sister and other family members who lived in the Pocatello home where the incident occurred.

Several people, including Robinson, told police they were highly concerned for several months regarding Prescott’s interactions with his daughter, the 3-month-old baby, and Robinson’s 3-year-old daughter from a previous relationship.

Robinson told police that oftentimes she would come home from working a long day and would also complete most of the domestic chores around the house like paying bills or doing laundry, police said.

Robinson’s sister told police that on the day of the child’s injuries, Prescott did not seem concerned with his daughter’s symptoms and took his time getting ready to leave the house to take his daughter to the hospital.

During his interview with police on May 4, Prescott initially told detectives the same series of events on April 27, police said. However, after police told him that he needed to be 100 percent honest to keep his family together, Prescott changed his story.

Prescott told police that the child was fussing and he could not calm her down so he dropped the baby from a foot to a foot-and-one-half in the air onto a mattress. Police continued to question Prescott who eventually said, “I did it, I lost my cool. I did not mean to do it or hurt her,” according to police records.

Prescott then told police that he “picked (the child) up just above her waist and slammed her down onto her back on the bed,” according to police.

Prescott said the baby’s head was not supported when he slammed her. And when police asked Prescott to rate how hard he slammed her on a scale of one to 10, Prescott said, “It would have been a six to a seven.”

In addition to the severe brain injury on April 27, police records indicate that family members told detectives that the diagnosis from Children’s Primary in Utah suggested there were old brain bleeds underneath the injury she was admitted for.

Prescott told police that those injuries were from him “after he lost his cool,” according to police records.

Prescott, who has retained Pocatello attorney Craig Parrish, was served with a summons to appear in court for the felony charge on May 16, which he completed on May 17. He is due back in court for a preliminary hearing on June 20.

In addition to facing up to 10 years in prison if convicted of the felony injury to a child charge, Prescott could face a $50,000 fine.

Parrish did not immediately respond to the Journal’s request for comment.

Robinson told the Journal on Monday that her daughter did not require surgery for her injuries at Children’s Primary in Utah. However, Robinson said that because Prescott did not initially admit to causing the baby’s injuries that police contacted officials with the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare, who took the infant into their possession until a thorough investigation could be completed.

A foster family drove to Utah to pick the child up, Robinson said, adding that she waited 22 days before the child was once again in her custody.

Since the incident, Robinson said she and Prescott are no longer a couple and he no longer lives in the home she shares with other family members. A one year no-contact order between Prescott and Robinson was issued on May 31.

The baby is expected to make a full recovery, too, Robinson said.

“The doctor’s said she should recover just fine,” Robinson said. “They don’t think she will have any long-term effects at all and she seems to be back to her normal self again.”