Telegraph photo by DEAN SHALHOUP Court officers escort Nicole Belonga into Superior Court Monday for the hearing on her petition asking a judge to suspend the final four years of her 15-30 year prison term. A judge's ruling is pending.

NASHUA – For the past 10 years, former Nashua resident Nicole Belonga has found herself “wishing I could change what happened” back in January 2006.

That’s when Belonga’s 21-month-old daughter, Rylea, died of what some doctors called the worst case of “shaken baby syndrome” they had ever seen – which led to Belonga’s arrest on a second-degree murder charge for inflicting those injuries.

More than a year later, Belonga, although acquitted of second-degree murder, was convicted of manslaughter in Hillsborough County Superior Court-South.

In handing down the maximum sentence of 15 to 30 years in the New Hampshire State Prison for Women, presiding Judge William Groff told Belonga: “On that day, you were a monster.”

On Monday, slightly more than 10 years after she entered prison, Belonga was back in Superior Court, this time to ask current Judge Charles Temple to grant her petition to suspend the remainder of her minimum sentence.

Belonga, now 37 and by all accounts a model prisoner during her 10-plus years behind bars, filed her petition under a fairly new statute that allows convicts who have served at least two-thirds of their minimum sentence to ask the court to suspend the remainder of the sentence.

Temple, after hearing from Belonga and Assistant Attorneys General Susan Morrell and Benjamin Agati, said he will take the matter under advisement and file his ruling in the near future.

Noting that “many of you who came here today probably wish I would make a ruling now,” Temple said fairness to all parties requires him to review trial documents, consider written input from various family members or others close to Belonga, and go over again the arguments put forth by Belonga and the prosecutors before he writes his ruling.

“It’s pretty clear I need to look at everything very carefully,” Temple told the nearly 40 people who attended the hearing.

Members of Belonga’s family and those of Victor DeLaCruz IV, Rylea’s father, filled most of the seating in the courtroom.

Temple commended Belonga for taking responsibility for her actions: “I think it’s a real positive for the people in this room to hear you take responsibility,” he said, also noting that “it’s rare” for an inmate to have no disciplinary violations over 10 years, as has Belonga.

Further, Temple said, “I don’t know if I’ve seen anyone do as much in prison as you have,” referring to the list of programs, courses and other activities in which Belonga has participated over the years.

Representing herself pro se, meaning without an attorney, Belonga spoke slowly, at times haltingly, as she addressed the court.

“I’ve worked very hard … I took corrections and rehabilitation very seriously,” she said. “I did lots of jobs, got excellent performance reports, and I worked hard on my relationship with my family and my support system.”

Belonga acknowledged she strenuously denied “from the beginning” that she was responsible for her daughter’s death.

She recalled insisting “it wasn’t me … I couldn’t hurt anyone. But at the end of the day,” she said, pausing to gather her thoughts, “Rylea is gone because of the choices I made.”

Morrell, the co-prosecutor, said the state objects “to the suspension of any of the defendant’s sentence.

“We do recognize she has attended a lot of programs, and that’s fine for when she comes up for parole in four years,” Morrell said.

She detailed some of the injuries Rylea suffered, which included a “brain bleed” and “blunt trauma,” and said they were the result of “a savage, unprovoked, violent attack on a baby.”

Morrell pointed out Belonga failed to “seek out medical attention” for Rylea, and “blamed others,” including a babysitter whom Belonga accused of causing the injuries.

Belonga didn’t get medical help for Rylea “because she didn’t want to take responsibility,” Morrell continued. “This was a long, hard fought trial, because the defendant wouldn’t take responsibility.”

Morrell asked Temple to deny Belonga’s petition. “The state believes in the need to have justice for Rylea,” she said.