Man who investigators say beat girl is charged with child abuse
A Greenacres man landed in jail after deputies say he beat a child who was “trippin heavy,” according to a Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office arrest report.
Marino Jose Fernandez, 22, of Greenacres, was charged with aggravated child abuse on Wednesday.
The investigation started with a child abuse complaint from the Department of Children and Families about an unidentified girl, whose agewas not released, at Delray Community Hospital on June 14. She came in with a skull fracture and brain bleeding, according to the report.
Sheriff’s Office investigators met with Fernandez and an unidentified woman at the Colonial Village Motel in Lake Worth, where the girlwas injured, according to the report. Deputies say the two gave stories that were “completely different in regards to specific information.”
As deputies investigated,
coworker
of the unidentified woman tipped off DCF about text messages and photos between them alleging abuse at the hands of Fernandez.
In messages between the woman and Fernandez onMay 9, investigators said they found a conversation where Fernandezwas upset because the girl wouldn’t stay away from a George Foreman grill. He decided to let her touch the hot grill, which made her afraid of it.
In text messages on May 24, Fernandez told the unidentified woman that the girl looked bad after he slapped her because he was upset and the girl was “trippin heavy,” or behaving poorly, according to the report.
Sheriff’s Office deputies wrote that they later saw pictures of the girl’s face, which had “massive facial bruising with the appearance of a hand print on both sides of her face.”
Fernandez reenacted events for investigators.
He told them that he and the woman wereonabedandthe childwas climbing off another bedwhenshe fell backward and hit her head on a wooden toy box between the beds. He said he lunged for the child but couldn’t prevent the injury.
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