Woman admits to disorderly conduct at day care facility
NORRISTOWN >> A Conshohocken woman faces court supervision after she admitted to causing alarm by inappropriately handling a 2-year-old boy in her care while working at a Norristown day care facility.
Joy Lesley Nelson, 31, of the 100 block of East Hector Street, was sentenced in Montgomery County Court on Friday to one year of probation after she pleaded guilty to four summary counts of disorderly conduct in connection with an April 12, 2018, incident at the St. Francis Early Learning Center in Norristown.
The sentence was imposed by Judge Thomas C. Branca as part of a plea agreement.
“By pleading guilty she admitted that … she engaged in disorderly conduct by causing annoyance or alarm by handling a child in an inappropriate manner,” said county Assistant Dis
trict Attorney Lauren Marvel, explaining the nature of Nelson’s admission.
While questioning Nelson, defense lawyer Jason G. Donoghue pointed out that the guilty plea to disorderly conduct also was an admission that the incident did not rise to the level of child abuse.
Under state law, someone commits disorderly conduct when they cause public inconvenience, annoyance or alarm by creating a physically offensive condition by
any act which serves no legitimate purpose.
Nelson originally was charged with simple assault and recklessly endangering another person but prosecutors amended the charges to disorderly conduct as part of the plea agreement.
Nelson declined to comment about the outcome of her case as she left the courtroom on Friday.
The victim’s mother was in the courtroom and said she was satisfied with the outcome.
“I’m definitely happy this is over. Throughout it all, I never wanted her to go to jail. I was just basically looking for an apology,” the victim’s
mother said after the brief hearing.
Nelson did not say anything in court other than admit to the disorderly conduct charges.
“I’m just grateful that I had some great people in my corner,” the victim’s mother added, thanking Norristown Detective David Crawford and Marvel. “Everyone was super helpful. I’m grateful and I’m happy it’s over and now I can put it to rest. And my son’s doing fine. Thank God for that.”
Nelson was identified in court papers as being a “lead teacher” at the learning center, located in the 600 block of Hamilton Street, at the
time of the incident. Court documents indicate Nelson was fired from her job after the allegations came to light.
An investigation began when the mother of the 2-year-old boy was informed by day care center officials on April 12 that her son sustained an injury to his right cheek from a fall at the learning center, according to the criminal complaint. The child’s mother asked to review surveillance camera footage of the incident that was recorded by the facility’s in-house security cameras and did so on April 13, Crawford wrote in the arrest affidavit.
After viewing the video
footage, the child’s mother “was outraged and contacted police immediately” and took her son for a medical evaluation, according to the arrest affidavit.
Investigators subsequently retrieved video footage from multiple days in the classroom.
Detectives alleged a review of the footage showed Nelson “dragging multiple students around the classroom by their upper arm” and “shoving” the backs of heads of multiple toddlers who were not lying down for nap time.
“Joy Nelson then approached (the victim) and shoved the back of his head
in a downward motion, causing the front of his face to strike a filing cabinet,” Crawford alleged. “The force used by Joy Nelson was strong enough that (the victim’s) face started to bleed while he was lying flat, crying until the assistant teacher walked over to him and noticed the injury to his face.”
Nelson, detectives alleged, then used what appeared to be a paper towel on the child’s face, making the injured child hold the towel to his face.
Nelson allegedly then told an assistant teacher that the victim must have fallen down and injured himself, according to court papers.