NEW HAVEN, Conn. (AP) – A city man has been sent to prison for 20 years in a baby shaking case that left his infant son with permanent brain damage and blindness in one eye.

Eric Kennedy, 36, maintained that the boy fell out of bed and hit his head. He also said during his sentencing Friday in New Haven Superior Court that he did not intentionally injure his son.

“I believe he hit his head on the windowsill and the floor,” Kennedy said. “If I shook him, it wasnt out of hate. I was trying to keep him conscious. I was trying to help him, and I caused more damage.”

Kennedy said he was at fault for leaving the child unattended in bed and asked Judge Richard Damiani for mercy. He said he was sorry for what happened.

Damiani was not sympathetic to Kennedy’s plea.

“You are apologizing, but you are still sticking with your story that he fell out of bed and hit his head,” Damiani said. “He is blind in one eye and will need to stay in a nursing home. This young boy is frozen at nine months and will never be right.”

The boy, now 2 years old, was injured in January 2004. He has only half his bodily functions and needs to be supervised at all times, prosecutor John Waddock said.

Kennedy took a plea deal that called for a prison sentence of 15 to 20 years. He was convicted of first-degree assault and risk of injury to a minor.

Michael Moscowitz, Kennedy’s lawyer, said the boy’s injuries are “horrific.”

He said Kennedy “does understand his responsibility – it is something that will live with him until the day he dies. He is in a great deal of pain and has sworn he will do right by this child because of his actions.”