Michigan man sentenced to 18 to 75 years for child abuse that left girl immobile, blind, and deaf
05/12/2022 12:57 pm PDT
COLDWATER, Mich. (TCD) -- A 27-year-old man has recently been sentenced for child abuse charges after causing injuries that left a girl blind, deaf, and immobile in the fall of 2020.
According to WTVB-TV, officers from the Coldwater Police Department responded to a home in early October of 2020 to a report of child abuse. At the scene, authorities reportedly found a 1-year-old girl who had suffered a severe head injury, a severe laceration to her lip, bruised organs, bruising along her body, and multiple burns.
The Daily Reporter alleges Nicholas Platek was taking care of the girl while her mother was at work, and he called the mother to tell her the child was unconscious at their apartment.
Platek reportedly packed his belongings and fled the scene while the mother brought the child to a nearby hospital. The girl had to be airlifted to Bronson Methodist Hospital in Kalamazoo, the Daily Reporter says.
The juvenile reportedly suffered head trauma, severe traumatic brain injury, and cerebral trauma, along with retinal bleeding in both eyes, traumatic mouth injury, and multiple contusions to the forehead and temple, lung opacities, cardiac contusion, an open wound on the left forearm, and multiple open wounds on her ankles, matching the consistency of a burn injury.
The doctor treating the juvenile told the Daily Reporter her injuries were consistent with abuse, including what looked like a midair strike, forceful insertion of an object into her mouth, forceful kicks near the chest, and flame applied to the skin.
According to a news release from Branch County Prosecuting Attorney Zachary W. Stempien, on March 31, Platek pleaded as charged to first-degree child abuse, and on May 9, he was sentenced to 18 years to 75 years in the Michigan Department of Corrections. Stempien says Platek had two other cases dismissed for possession of meth and second-degree child abuse.
According to the Daily Reporter, in 2010, Platek was convicted of child abuse after his then 2-year-old daughter was playing with a syringe and cotton ball and later tested positive for morphine in her blood. Platek admitted to using and possessing heroin at the time.
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