Mom faces trial in ‘discipline’ case
WESTCHESTER » The discipline of Julianne Stay Lewis’s 9-year-old daughter began within weeks of her dating Dimitrios Moscharis after moving to Westtown in September, according to court records.
It started with forced time-outs and orders to march for extended periods of time up and down the staircase at Lewis’s rented townhouse in Coventry Village, a small development off Oakbourne Road not far from the Route 202 Bypass just outside West Chester.
But it reportedly increased in force over time as the girl continued to misbehave, until Moscharis was beating the child semiregularly with clothes hangers and plastic rods, leaving her bruised and welted.
Ultimately, the trauma the girl allegedly suffered at Moscharis’ hands proved too much for her to overcome. She collapsed in the second-floor bathroom of her home just before 1 a.m. on Nov. 23, and was rushed to the hospital.
Lewis, who admitted having had difficulty controlling her daughter when she would “act out” or not listen to her, agreed to let Moscharis handle the discipline he felt the girl needed, even as it increased in physical ferocity, and did nothing to restrict it as it occurred, according to testimony at a Dec. 22 preliminary hearing.
“Lewis indicated that if she felt the discipline became excessive, she would have told Moscharis to stop,” according to a seven-page criminal complaint filed by WesttownEast Goshen (WEGO) Regional Police Department and Chester County Detectives investigators assigned to the case. It is “what was supposed to be done.”
In an interview, Lewis described to police six separate sessions in which Moscharis would forcefully beat the girl in the days in November before the girl was rushed to A.I. DuPont de Nemours Hospital in Wilmington, Del. They increased in fury, the criminal affidavit filed in the case suggests, until the weekend of Nov. 21, when Moscharis admitted that his actions were “the worst he had ever beaten her.”
Lewis, 31, and Moscharis, 34, were both ordered held for trial in Common Pleas Court on multiple charges of aggravated assault of a person under 13, endangering the welfare of children, unlawful restraint, false imprisonment, simple assault, and recklessly endangering another person.
Moscharis, a longtime resident of the West Chester area with a history of domestic violence, was also ordered held on charges of attempted homicide.
Both were present in the Chester County Justice Center for separate preliminary hearings before Magisterial District Judge Martin Goch of West Goshen. The proceeding had been moved to the Justice Center because of security concerns.
They were returned to Chester County Prison following the hearings, where they have been held since their arrests.
Lewis’s daughter suffered a “near fatality” the night of Nov. 22, according to the doctors who examined her at DuPont Hospital in the early morning hours of Nov. 23. She had sustained injuries to her lungs and torso, including extensive bruising from outside trauma, and had suffered brain damage due to oxygen deprivation for an extended period of time — an injury Dr. Stephanie Deutsch said was consistent with strangulation of suffocation.
When she arrived at the hospital, the girl was experiencing “agonal breathing,” which meant she was struggling to breathe, according to the complaint filed by WEGO Detective Russel Weaverling and Chester County Detective Gerald Davis Jr. Even at that time, the physicians reported at the time that she was unlikely to survive. She had suffered mutli-organ trauma.
But survive she did. Under questioning from Deputy District Attorney Erin O’Brien of the D.A.’s Child Abuse Unit, Davis said the girl has been taken out of the hospital’s Intensive Care Unit. While not speaking and may have lasting effects from the brain damage she suffered, the girl is expected to recover.
In testimony during Lewis’s hearing, WEGO Detective Michael Ragni said that in an interview with Moscharis, the boyfriend described how Lewis told him she could not control her daughter with nonphysical discipline. “She does not put her hands on her,” the detective quoted Moscharis as saying.
So they came up with a plan, Ragni said. “Dimitri would be the bad guy, because Dimitrios knew more about discipline than Julianne. He could handle the physical part of the discipline.”
In a statement to police, Lewis said there were numerous sessions of physical discipline, where Moscharis would either spank the girl or strike her with an implement — sometimes a metal curtain rod, sometimes a clothes hanger. “She said the discipline would keep up if (the girl) wouldn’t behave,” and that she saw bruises on the girl’s backside and hips.
But Moscharis told the investigator that the girl told him she actually preferred the physical disciple to the time-outs and stair walking — which were timed and lasted several hours at a stretch. “‘You are going to have to hurt me harder if you think I am going to listen to you,’” Moscharis told Ragni the girl told him. “In his words, she took it like a champ.”
The weekend before the 9-year-old was taken to the hospital began with several sessions of physical punishment, Moscharis told Ragni during an interview. But the girl insisted she would not behave, so Moscharis and Lewis agreed that there would be a day of “timeout.” The girl was eventually out inside a hall closet for several hours, and at some point Lewis went to work in Philadelphia.
She received a phone call from Moscharis around 1 a.m., who said the girl had stopped breathing. Ragni said Moscharis told him Lewis told him not to call for emergency help, and drove him. He said he tried to revive her, but could not, and Lewis finally arrived about 30 minutes later. She then called 9-1-1.
Lewis, who is represented by Assistant Public Defender Sheryl Willson, did not speak during the hearing. Although she seemed unemotional at first, as the testimony about what had happened between Moscharis and her daughter proceeded her head sunk lower an lower until her brown hair fell across her face, covering it.
To contact staff writer Michael P. Rellahan, call 610-696-1544.