- January 11, 2025
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A Palm Coast man has been charged with felony child abuse after beating a child with a belt for eating candy.
The man, 25, was arrested from a home on Wellwood Lane in Palm Coast on Feb. 8 and charged with felony child abuse. He posted bail the following day, but an order of no contact was issued to keep him from the victim.
A Flagler County Sheriff’s Office deputy responded to a call from Rymfire Elementary School about a 5-year-old student with a large, red and swollen injury on his right cheek, according to the arrest report.
The anonymous reporter, who sees the boy every morning, said he did not have the bruise the day before, the report said.
The deputy and a child protective investigator interviewed the boy at the school. He told them his stepfather hit him in the face with the buckle of a belt when his stepfather caught him eating candy when he was not supposed to, the report said.
The boy said he was in his parents’ room watching YouTube and eating candy on the bed when his stepfather caught him, the report said. The boy said his stepfather grabbed a belt and whipped him with it on his knees, backside and face.
The boy told the deputy he is frequently whipped by his stepfather, the report said. When the deputy interviewed the boy’s two sisters, one also said they are all “whooped” with the belt when they are disciplined; she said she was in the room with her brother during the beating but did not see it because she did not look.
The other sister denied the whippings and claimed she did not to know how her brother was disciplined the night before, though she heard him crying.
The FCSO deputy met with the boy’s mother and stepfather at their residence at around 3 p.m. The mother said she was not home the night before and did not know about the bruise on her son’s face, the report said, though she knew he had been in trouble. She said she did not seen him that morning either.
When the deputy talked to the stepfather, he denied ever using a belt on the boy and said the 5-year-old fell and hit his face two separate times, the report said, but could not say when that was; The stepfather said the boy was clumsy.
Based on the evidence, the stepfather was placed under arrest for felony child abuse and taken to the Flagler County jail.
