Mother will face trial in breaking baby’s ribs

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

A Lincoln-Lemington mother charged with breaking her 2-month-old daughter’s ribs waived her right to a preliminary hearing Friday and will face trial on the charges.

Prosecutors withdrew two aggravated assault charges Friday against Adrienne Hughes, 22, during the proceeding in City Court, Downtown.

Ms. Hughes’s remaining charges — two additional aggravated assault charges and an endangerment charge — will go forward in Allegheny County Common Pleas Court.

Also waiving his right to a preliminary hearing Friday was the child’s father, Travell Damont Dean, 23, who is charged with one count of endangering the welfare of children.

Pittsburgh police arrested Ms. Hughes earlier this month, alleging that she broke her baby’s ribs by holding her “incorrectly,” putting one arm on the baby’s back and tightly pressing the infant against her waist while the infant kicked and screamed, according to court paperwork.

The woman denied dropping or intentionally harming her infant but said she may have accidentally hurt the baby and not realized it, because the infant “screams like someone is killing her [even] when she gets her diaper changed,” a criminal complaint said.

Doctors told police, however, that the baby — identified only as Jane Doe — could not have suffered her injuries without someone knowing.

Police said the child, who is now 4 months old, lived with Ms. Hughes, Mr. Dean and Mr. Dean’s mother.

The criminal complaint for Mr. Dean states, “Hughes admitted that Dean has held Jane Doe incorrectly a few times.”

There was no other information in the police affidavit describing what harm Mr. Dean might have caused the child.