A 23-year-old, self-described MMA (mixed martial arts) fighter from Rathdrum may spend 10 days in jail after pleading guilty in Coeur d’Alene Magistrate Court to one count of abusing a vulnerable adult.

Former caregiver William J.P. Robertson, Jr. is accused of punching a 27-year-old disabled man at a Coeur d’Alene facility, causing a deep laceration in the man’s face that required stitches, and requiring removal of one of his testicles.

Robertson was sentenced this week by Magistrate Anna Eckhart, who suspended 170 days of a 180-day sentence and ordered a $300 fine and two years probation.

Police said as part of his job at Milestone Decisions, a care facility that provides services for intellectually disabled adults, Robertson was among night-shift employees at a residential house near Kathleen Avenue when Clint McDonald, one of the residents, was severely injured.

McDonald’s injuries required he visit the Kootenai Health Emergency room twice in two weeks, according to Emily Cook, Milestone’s associate director.

Because McDonald is disabled and does not speak, he could not be interviewed.

“The (doctor) said the damage to his genitals was so severe, one of his testicles ruptured and needed to be surgically removed,” according to a report by Coeur d’Alene Police Detective Josh Gillmore.

The injury inside McDonald’s mouth “appeared to be from being punched,” Gillmore wrote. “It was split from the lip to the back of the cheek.”

Gillmore said he received a report attributing the injury to blunt-force trauma.

Although McDonald has a history of hitting himself on the side of the head, or striking the wall when he is frustrated, he doesn’t have a history of “hitting himself in the face or genitals,” according to the police report.

Robertson, who practiced to be a mixed martial artist, was one of two caregivers in charge the night McDonald’s face injury occurred. The other was exonerated after taking a polygraph test, but Robertson, who had a history of making vulgar statements and threatening to hit people when he was angry, according to witnesses, refused the lie detector, according to police.

Initially, Robertson told police he didn’t know what happened to McDonald. After further interviews he allegedly confessed to accidentally striking McDonald in the mouth as he tried to remove his camouflage T-shirt. Pictures taken in McDonald’s room by staff after the incident showed blood on McDonald’s plaid bed sheets.

Robertson was charged in March with the felony, and summoned into court earlier this month. Eckhart sentenced Robertson, April 12, for abusing McDonald by “intentionally or negligently (inflicting) physical pain and or injury by causing a large cut on Clint McDonald’s mouth and face.”

Robertson, whose criminal record contains two prior misdemeanors that occurred around the same time he became a suspect in the abuse case, was given the option by the court of working 40 hours on the sheriff’s office labor program in lieu of spending 10 days in jail.

Police said no further charges are pending in the case.