Couple guilty in horrific abuse case
A Cudahy couple were convicted Wednesday in a horrific child abuse case in which they allowed other children to brutally abuse their then 15-year-old daughter, calling it “discipline.”
They were found not guilty on two chronic neglect counts.
The jury hearing the child abuse case against 47-year-old Kevin Boon-Bey and his 34-year-old wife, Felicia Boon, came to that decision following a full day of deliberation and a week’s worth of evidence and testimony.
The couple were facing six counts of causing physical and mental harm and conspiring to commit physical and emotional abuse to the 15-year-old girl.
Both were found guilty of causing mental harm, chronic neglect causing emotional damage and false imprisonment. Felicia Boon was also found guilty of causing physical harm to a child. Both were found not guilty of chronic neglect of a child causing bodily harm.
The trial was filled with appalling details of the abuse inflicted on the child by her family: burns from scalding water thrown down her back; infections from being forced to eat in the same bowl she was forced to defecate in; malnutrition so severe she could not eat full meals; and liver damage putting her in danger of renal failure.
On the stand, she relayed how her cousin and siblings beat her after BoonBey, her father, and Boon, her stepmother, authorized them to “discipline” her.
She was rescued Dec. 5, when Cudahy Police Officer Adam Frick responded to a call about a girl throwing boiling water on another girl at her parents’ house in the 3600 block of East Lunham Avenue.
Frick, who left but returned after receiving more information at the station, testified that as he climbed the stairs inside the home, ignoring several family members’ insistence that the girl was fine, the smell of urine hit him like a wave, burning his eyes and nose.
As the girl emerged from her bedroom, bruised, scratched and shifting from swollen foot to swollen foot, she told Frick she was afraid to remain in the home and he took her to the police
station.
On the stand, the girl told the jury escape was her only option.
“I knew I was going to get out before it was too late,” she said.
A week’s worth of testimony
Seven months after her ordeal ended, her father and stepmother’s trial began July 22 — in front of Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Michael J. Hanrahan. Boon-Bey represented himself while his wife Felicia Boon was represented by William Sulton.
The victim took the stand and testified to how her brother threw baby formula on her face and one cousin beat her with a curtain rod.
“She was just beating me with it if there was nothing else in the room she could find. I don’t know where she got them from, but there were metal poles she would use — belts, switches — just anything she could find.”
In an unusual moment, Boon-Bey, acting as his own attorney, cross-examWhen ined his daughter.
“I love you, you still are my daughter and … I will fight for you the best that I can,” he said, prompting the judge to tell him to stick to questions, as his daughter wiped away tears.
During his cross-examination of the girl, Boon’s attorney, William Sulton asked why she never told police at the hospital that she had been hit with a metal pole.
“I barely told him anything because I was so bruised, they took me to the hospital right away,” she responded.
Hillary Petska, a physician testifying for the state, described the significant damage the teenager suffered: contusions around the girl’s neck from being choked with a cord; trauma to her face from being hit with metal poles; marks from being punched and slapped; abrasions on her wrists from being zip-tied to a bed; and bruises all over her body from being beaten with the buckle end of a belt.
Jurors reacted viscerally to Petska’s testimony. One put a fist over his mouth, another began twisting in her seat, shoulders drawn with a hand pressed against her chin.
Yet another pursed his lips and glanced over his glasses at Boon-Bey, who at times cleaned his nails as Milwaukee County Deputy District Attorney Matthew Torbenson held up images of the injuries.
“She was covered in injuries from head-to-toe,” Petska said.
The father and stepmother testify
When Boon-Bey took the stand, he challenged the state’s premise, saying that he and his wife did their best to raise a defiant child but never abused her.
Why was the girl bruised and barely able to move when she came downstairs Dec. 5, he was asked.
“I do not recall her looking like this,” Boon-bey said.
“You can see, can’t you?” Torbenson countered.
Torbenson pointed out the contradictions in Boon-Bey’s testimony, which alternated between portraying a fully involved father who checked on his daughter every day, to one who failed to notice the deteriorating conditions of his daughter’s room.
In his narrative statement, Boon-Bey said, “There was never a child in the home where their needs, whether personal or educational, were not met.”
she took the stand, Felicia Boon said she hadn’t seen her stepdaughter for weeks, not because she wasn’t feeding her, but because the teenager had assaulted her on Nov. 26.
Boon said the girl’s mattress was removed because it smelled of urine and she also accused police of bullying her son into testifying against his parents.
During cross-examination, Torbenson rebuked Boon for dodging responsibility.
When Boon described her stepdaughter’s injuries as being the result of a “dispute,” Torbenson demanded that she review photos of her stepdaughter’s bruises, cuts and burns.
Does this look like a dispute to you, he asked?
No, she acknowledged.
In his closing arguments, Sulton blamed other children in the home for harming the girl.
Boon-Bey said his “extraordinary ... resourceful” daughter was delusional and had invented the allegations.
“That’s ridiculous,” Torbenson said. “The truth is, they’re guilty.” Ultimately, the jury agreed. Boon could face more than 40 years in prison and Boon-Bey more than 30 at their sentencing.