{"id":15257,"date":"2025-12-12T19:50:11","date_gmt":"2025-12-13T02:50:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/bloomfield-man-sentenced-in-case-of-severe-child-abuse\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T21:46:47","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T03:46:47","slug":"bloomfield-man-sentenced-in-case-of-severe-child-abuse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/bloomfield-man-sentenced-in-case-of-severe-child-abuse\/","title":{"rendered":"Bloomfield man sentenced in case of severe child abuse"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Joseph
Joseph Bresch, 38, is seen here in a Thursday booking photo from the Albuquerque Metropolitan Detention Center, where he is being held on aggravated battery charges and a bench warrant out of San Juan County.<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

A Bloomfield man who admitted to slitting his infant daughter\u2019s throat was sentenced to 14\u00bd years in the New Mexico Department of Corrections.<\/p>\n

Joseph Bresch, 40, stood before 11th Judicial District Judge Curtis Gurley on Dec. 11 after pleading guilty to child abuse resulting in great bodily harm, battery against a household member and three counts of battery on a peace officer.<\/p>\n

Bresch also admitted to a prior child abuse conviction in Nevada.<\/p>\n

During the sentencing hearing, the guardian of Bresch\u2019s child addressed the court.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe is a miracle,\u201d he said of the 4-year-old. \u201cEveryone who meets her falls in love with her.\u201d<\/p>\n

At 2 months old, the child had more than 30 broken bones and multiple injuries, including bruising and burst blood vessels in her left eye, damage to her left ear, cuts behind the ear, swelling around her nose and eyes, broken ribs, severe diaper rash and, most alarming, a deep cut across her neck near the jawline, according to the arrest affidavit.<\/p>\n

Because of this, her guardian said, \u201cshe is really small,\u201d weighing only 30 pounds, and she suffers from bone \u201cdemineralization\u201d from all of the fractures.<\/p>\n

Despite this, \u201cshe does well \u2026 she keeps up,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Bresch\u2019s former wife and mother of the child, Michelle Jolly, previously told the Tri-City Record <\/em>she too was a victim and that Bresch admitted to striking her out of anger.<\/p>\n

However, Gurley stated in court, \u201cI have made note a couple times, I\u2019m still surprised the state is not pursuing charges against Jolly.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jolly originally was charged with child abuse but previously told the Tri-City Record<\/em> that she was living in constant fear for her life.<\/p>\n

Special Prosecutor Johanna Cox told the court Jolly\u2019s life with Bresch was \u201chorror,\u201d and she also brought up his history of child abuse while requesting the maximum sentence of 10 years on the child abuse charge.<\/p>\n

Assistant District Attorney Terry Walker prosecuted the battery-on-a-peace-officer cases and told the court that while no guards from the San Juan County Detention Center were at the hearing, the detention officers were \u201canxious to get him out of there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Defense attorney Tyson Quail stated that while the injuries to the infant \u201cwere significant,\u201d Bresch had \u201ctaken responsibility\u201d and admitted to the facts of the case. He asked that Bresch receive a five-year sentence.<\/p>\n

\u201cJudges have a hard job,\u201d Gurley said, adding that he warned Bresch about the consequences of his actions when he revoked his conditions of release.<\/p>\n

His conditions of release had been revoked after Bresch was charged with a new offense while on federal probation in Albuquerque.<\/p>\n

Gurley said he had a \u201cgrave concern\u201d about it because the allegations were similar, in that Bresch was accused of holding a knife to a woman\u2019s throat.<\/p>\n

\u201cI cannot get past that,\u201d Gurley said.<\/p>\n

Once in the San Juan County Detention Center, Bresch continued to violate the rules and faced three additional charges.<\/p>\n

Gurley sentenced Bresch to 14\u00bd years in prison followed by two years of parole.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

receives 14\u00bd years in prison<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15258,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-15257","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15257","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15257"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15257\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19562,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15257\/revisions\/19562"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15258"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15257"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=15257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}