Damien Large

A Butler man was sentenced Thursday, Feb. 16, to serve six to 14 years in state prison for causing the death of an unborn baby on Christmas Day 2020.

Damien Large, 21, received his sentence after pleading guilty to third degree murder of an unborn child, and was sentenced to concurrently serve two to five years in prison after pleading guilty to a felony charge of aggravated assault for beating the same woman who was carrying the unborn child.

Butler Township police filed charges in both cases.

County Common Pleas Court Judge Kelley Streib imposed the sentences, which, she said, are in the standard range of sentencing guidelines.

Large made no statements before he was sentenced. He appeared through video from the Butler County Prison where he has been held since his arrest in January 2021. The victim did not attend the sentencing hearing.

Large was age 19 on Dec. 25, 2020, when he assaulted Crystal Bogart, 34, of Butler in the Super 8 motel in Butler Township, where they had been staying.

At a preliminary hearing in July 2021, Bogart testified that Large asked her to go door-to-door in the motel to get a cigarette for him. She said it was a frequent request and often was followed by a beating.

After returning with a cigarette, she said Large jumped on top of her, pinning her to the bed, choked her and threatened to kill her.

She said she was in and out of consciousness as he choked her, but she remembers him punching her stomach three or four times.

She said she was in a relationship with the biological father of her child when she met Large. She said after she left the father for Large, the two moved multiple times until they ended up at the motel.

After they moved to the motel, Large began to change personalities between himself, Lucifer and God, she said.

Bogart underwent an emergency cesarean section at Butler Memorial Hospital shortly after midnight Dec. 26.

Dr. Edwin Cheek, an OB-GYN who performed the operation, testified that the baby was about a week from being full term.

He said there was bruising on Bogart’s lower abdomen that she had said occurred after she fell on a curb or stairs. He said bruises from a curb would be linear, but the bruises he saw were smaller and circular.

Cheek said that after the child was removed, he handed him over to a pediatrician standing by who spent 10 to 15 minutes trying to resuscitate the infant. Cheek said he pronounced the baby's death and attributed the cause of death to acute placental abruption.

During an acute abruption, the placenta detaches from the uterine wall, causing bleeding inside the mother and lack of blood flow to the baby.

Cheek said Bogart checked herself out of the hospital against medical advice before he returned to her room the next morning to check on her.

Bogart said Large became rude with staff and pushed for her to be discharged. She said she was afraid of what he would do if she stayed. She said she was given the birth certificate for the baby, Bryan Michael Large.

A township police detective testified that police were dispatched on Jan. 3, 2021, for a report of an assault at the motel room were Large and Bogart were staying. That was the first time police were called to their motel room, according to an affidavit.

Large was charged that day with two counts of aggravated assault for attacking Bogart. Police said that was the first time Bogart told officers about the loss of her baby.

Police charged Large with the death of the unborn baby on March 16, 2021.

She told police that on Jan. 3, Large swung a hammer toward her head, and she raised her arms to block the blow and suffered a broken bone in her forearm. She said he also used the hammer to hit her on the side of her head, leg, buttocks and arm. She told police Large struck her in the face and dislodged two of her teeth on a day before the hammer attack. She said he also choked her.