Mom ‘repeatedly’ beat 5-week-old when he wouldn’t stop crying, California officials say
A mother “repeatedly” beat her newborn son when he wouldn’t stop crying, leaving him with 16 broken bones, California prosecutors say.
The 34-year-old Santa Ana woman was charged with 11 felony counts of child abuse, while the baby’s 35-year-old father was charged with one felony count of accessory after the fact, the Orange County District Attorney’s Office said in a May 16 news release. McClatchy News is not identifying the woman or man to protect the identity of their child.
The mother “is accused of punching her newborn baby in the ribs, shoulder, and arms when he cried on multiple occasions and roughly pulling his leg when she changed him,” prosecutors said.
The assaults started when the baby was 2 weeks old, according to prosecutors.
When the 5-week-old baby was brought to a children’s hospital in Orange on May 13 “because he wasn’t moving his left arm,” prosecutors said doctors found he had “16 broken bones, including a fractured knee, elbow, finger and ribs in two separate locations.”
Doctors also found the infant had a skull fracture, prosecutors said.
When police asked the father about how his son got his injuries, prosecutors said he lied, “trying to cover up the abuse.”
“A mother’s arms should be the safest place for a newborn, fiercely protecting him from the world, but for (the newborn) his mother’s arms were the weapons of violence which helped systematically break his little bones into tiny pieces because he wouldn’t stop doing what every newborn does — cry,” District Attorney Todd Spitzer said in the release.
The parents, who have pleaded not guilty, are each being held on $1 million bail, according to prosecutors.
If convicted on all counts, prosecutors said the mother could face a maximum 42-year prison sentence, while the father could face a three-year prison sentence.
Santa Ana is about a 30-mile drive southeast from Los Angeles.
This story was originally published May 17, 2024 at 11:27 AM with the headline "Mom ‘repeatedly’ beat 5-week-old when he wouldn’t stop crying, California officials say."
