CT pastor sentenced to 10 years in prison for physically assaulting infant, causing serious injuries
A Manchester pastor who was previously convicted of sexually abusing a boy was sentenced Wednesday to another 10 years in prison for what witnesses testified was physically assaulting an infant by slamming the baby against the floor and putting him in a sink of frigid water.
Robert Nichols was sentenced Wednesday by Judge Kevin C. Doyle at Superior Court in Hartford to 20 years in prison, executed after her serves 10 years, plus another five years on probation, according to court officials.
A jury found Nichols guilty of first-degree assault and two counts of risk of injury to a child in June after a 10-month-old baby living in his home suffered potentially life-threatening head trauma, according to court records and the state Division of Criminal Justice.
At his trial, one witness testified that she saw Nichols wrap the baby in a tight swaddle and slam him onto the floor numerous times, while another said they saw Nichols put the baby in a sink full of ice water, causing the baby to thrash and hit his head, according to court records.
Nichols was the pastor of the Word of Faith Ministry in East Hartford and lived with a number of his followers in a home that the ministry owned in Manchester.
Witnesses testified that Nichols claimed he communicated directly with God and used that to control his followers, including the baby’s parent’s. An arrest warrant for Nichols named him and the parents as the baby’s main caregivers.
In the warrant for his arrest, police said Nichols’ demanded obedience from his followers, including the baby boy, who “rebelled” against Nichols, and became the focus of a brutal disciplinary regime in August 2013.
The main witness to the alleged abuse of the child told police that Nichols labeled the boy “rebellious” and needed to stay with him until he could “get the rebellion out of him,” the arrest warrant affidavit said.
Nichols also sprayed the baby’s face with the sink sprayer until the child could not breathe, the warrant affidavit says.
Police in Manchester were alerted after a pediatrician examined the boy and evaluations by the Suspected Child Abuse and Neglect Division at Connecticut Children’s Medical Center showed the baby’s enlarged head was most likely the result of abuse when he was 9 to 12 months old, according to a warrant for Nichols’ arrest.
In an unrelated case, another jury found Nichols guilty of two counts of fourth-degree sexual assault and risk of injury to a minor on Sept. 27, 2022, and he was sentenced to 20 years in prison, suspended after eight years served, and 10 years of probation.
Nichols was found guilty of sexually and physically assaulting an 11-year-old boy who came forward after Nichols was arrested and charged with assaulting the baby, police said.
Nichols, who was running an after-school program connected to the Michael D. Fox Elementary School in Hartford in 2010, abused the boy after offering to let the boy stay with him for the summer to help his mother discipline him, records show.
In that case, he was sentenced to 20 years in prison to be suspended after he serves 8 years, followed by a decade on probation.
The sentences will run consecutively, court officials said.
