Day care worker indicted over alleged 2018 spanking

A Woodlands day care worker indicted Tuesday in Montgomery County is accused of spanking a 3-year-old boy, leaving bruises and red marks on his buttocks.

Tesla Caceres, 32 of Houston, is charged with injury to a child, a level two felony, related to the injury that occurred in July 2018.

Prosecutors with the Montgomery County District Attorney’s Office did not have information on why there was a delay between when the boy’s injuries were reported to law enforcement and the July 17 arrest of Caceres.

Kemah-based attorney Colm Keane, who is representing Caceres, declined to comment since the case is in active litigation.

According to court documents, a babysitter watching the boy in 2018 noticed the bruising and red marks on the child and reported it to the child’s mother. The mother then took the child to Texas Children’s Hospital The Woodlands to be examined.

Hospital officials contacted law enforcement and Child Protective Services to report the injuries to the child. CPS officials requested Children’s Safe Harbor to interview the boy. During that interview, documents state, the boy said Caceres hit him while in the diaper changing area of the Sawdust Road location of Childtime Learning Center where Caceres then was employed.

Representatives of Childtime Learning Center said Caceres has not been employed with the company since late 2018.

Officials with Children’s Safe Harbor provided photographs of the child showing red marks and bruises that looked like finger impressions left on the boy’s skin.

During an interview with the Montgomery County Precinct 3 Constable’s Office investigator, Caceres denied spanking the child and said it was against day care policy to spank children as a form of punishment, the arrest affidavit states.

“All of our staff members are expected to uphold our high standards of care and we will take appropriate action for any purported deviations from those standards,” Childtime Learning Center representatives said in a statement to The Courier. “We remain committed to ensuring the health and safety of the children in our care and will continue to assist authorities in any way we can.”

Caceres’s next court date is Oct. 2 in Montgomery County’s 435th state District Court. She is out of jail on a $10,000 bond.