Prosecutors describe the crime as so heinous, it's off the charts. A Leeward Oahu man, who sexually assaulted his own baby, received a life sentence with the chance of parole Thursday.
Danny Friddle didn't fight prosecutors' request for a lengthier prison term. He agreed the extended term is necessary for the protection of the public.
The horrific crime came to light when a video tape surfaced.
Sporting a new look with longer locks and a beard, Danny Friddle apologizes for repeatedly sexually assaulting his baby and video taping the disturbing acts.
"I'm sorry," he said. "There's nothing that I can do to undo what I've done, but I would give anything that I could to take it back."
"What the defendant did in this case was abominable," Douglas Chin, first deputy prosecutor, said. "It was sick. It was heartless. It was wicked."
The then-security guard's dark secret was revealed when Jetta David's young nephew spotted a bag at a Kalihi bus stop.
"Stuff happen for a reason and I guess God put him in that place to, you know, go and help," David said about her nephew. "And I'm a curious aunty, and I always look at what is this and what is that."
Inside the bag, they found Friddle's work ID and a video of him performing sexual acts on an infant girl.
"How much do you think about that baby you saw on the tape?" this reporter asked David.
"Every day," she replied. "I'm just happy for, you know, the little child. She's taken away from that."
KHNL and K5 News confronted Friddle just prior to his arrest a year ago. Authorities say he had reported the bag stolen a few days earlier.
"I want to say to that person who left behind that video tape...thank you," Chin said. "You stopped a nightmare."
Deputy public defender Jason Burks says his client was sexually abused.
"It's not something that he's, he came in and said, oh, because I was sexually assaulted, you know, that's why I did this," Burks said. "But it was a part of his past and it's a trend you see often in these cases."
The judge hands down a life sentence. Under a plea deal, prosecutors will ask for a 20-year minimum prison term when the case goes before the Hawaii parole board.
"I would have him in there locked up for life," David said. "I mean, he took an innocent child's, you know, life away."
Friddle hopes not.
"If she, in fact, doesn't recall any of this because of her young age...there's a decent chance for her living a normal life and not being affected by this in the long term," Burks said. "So, I mean, that's really what he hopes for."
Friddle must register as a convicted sex offender for the rest of his life and undergo sex offender treatment.
.........Sarah Tofte
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