NJ - 11-month-old Baby Fighting For Life, Assaulted by Sitter

AWFUL!

An 11-month-old baby boy is fighting life-threatening head injuries tonight after being assaulted by his baby-sitter, according to Morris County prosecutors who have arrested the 31-year-old woman.
Prosecutors arrested Khac T. Nguyen on Friday, a day after she called 911 to report the child's injuries, which include multiple skull fractures and bleeding in the brain, according to police documents.

The parents of the baby, identified only as K.N., left the child with Nguyen, who lives in Eagle Rock Village apartments in Mount Olive. At 3:21 on Thursday afternoon, Mount Olive police were called to the scene. The rescue squad transported the baby to Morristown Memorial Hospital's Pediatric Intensive Care Unit, police said.
The parents, who both work, told police the child was in good health when they left him with Nguyen at 10 a.m. that morning. An affidavit said the child was in the defendant's "custody and control" at the time a treating physician believes the injuries were suffered.
The doctor, Catherine Mazzola, believes the child was injured by blunt force trauma and had been shaken, documents said. The doctor described ruptures and blood clots in the brain consistent with a shaken baby. Police arrested Nguyen on Friday.
She was charged with aggravated assault and endangering the welfare of a child, second-degree offenses. Bail was set at $150,000 and she was taken to Morris County Correctional Facility.
http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2007/12/sitter_arrested_as_baby_fights.html

We just spent time with my little 5 month old niece last night. This news brings tears to my eyes as I can't imagine how anyone can hurt thes helpless little babies.

Who can do such a thing? She could've called the parents and said she could'nt handle it. This woman should rot in jail.

The nanny called 911 after she did it?

Keep me updated on condition of the baby.

My heart goes out to the parents of this little boy.
Babies are so sweet and adorable at this age. I cannot fatham this at all. Although his chances do not look good, I hope he's strong enough to facilitate a miracle.

MOUNT OLIVE -- A 31-year-old Budd Lake woman has been charged with shaking and beating an 11-month-old boy she was baby-sitting at her Eagle Rock Village apartment, the Morris County Prosecutor's office said on Saturday.

Khac Tam Nguyen -- a Vietnamese native whose immigration status is being investigated -- was charged on Friday night with aggravated assault and endangering the welfare of a child.
The prosecutor's office declined to give the victim's family's current address or that of the church where they had met Nguyen.
The baby is listed in critical condition at the Morristown Memorial Hospital's pediatric intensive care unit.
"It's tragic to watch parents as I did on Thursday evening devastated over something of this nature," Morris County Prosecutor Robert A. Bianchi said in a Saturday phone interview. "Our primary concern is investigating and determining what happened."
Bianchi said it was his understanding that Nguyen worked a night shift at UPS and baby-sat the boy over a six-week period during the day while his parents worked.
Head injuries
Dr. Catherine Mazzola treated the boy at the hospital and determined that he "had suffered multiple fractures to the skull and a subdural hematoma of the head," according to the arrest affidavit.
The family left the baby with Nguyen at around 10 a.m. Thursday and said the child was in good health, the affidavit stated. Nguyen called Mount Olive police at 3:30 p.m. because the child was vomiting and had other maladies.
"Based on the investigation, the infant child was within Tam Nguyen's custody and control at the time Dr. Mazzola believes the injuries were suffered," the affidavit stated.
Based on the injuries, the doctor said the child was hurt by blunt force trauma and had been shaken as well.
The boy suffered bridging -- or the rupturing of the small vessels that connect to the sagital sinus vein, which tore and caused clotting, according to the affidavit.
"(Mazzola) also stated that the location of the blood clotting within the brain was also consistent with the child being shaken," the affidavit continued.
Mazzola also indicated that the injuries "were not consistent with being dropped from a height of 3 to 4 feet, but rather from a significantly higher height," the affidavit stated.
"She stated that the blow to the back of the child's head caused a displaced bone within the child's skull, and that such an injury would be caused by a tremendous amount of force."
Superior Court Judge Salem Vincent Ahto set Nguyen's bail at $150,000, cash only, with the condition that she have no contact with the victim or the victim's family, and that she surrender her passport. She was taken to the Morris County jail. The investigation is ongoing. The prosecutor's office is being assisted by Mount Olive police, and by Officer Joe Nguyen of the Middlesex County Sheriff's Office. The officer provided translation services and is not related to the defendant.
http://www.dailyrecord.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071230/COMMUNITIES34/712300364

What a crock!!! Pure Psychopath, plain and simple!


Sitter: Injured baby suffered seizure

The Budd Lake woman charged with beating and shaking an 11-month-old child she was babysitting told investigators that she twice dropped the little boy on his head after trying to care for the baby, whom she believed was having a seizure, according to the arrest affidavit.

Khac Tam Nguyen, 31, was charged Friday with aggravated assault and endangering the welfare of a child after rescue workers took the baby from Nguyen’s Eagle Rock Village Apartment to Morristown Memorial Hospital, where the infant remains listed in critical condition, the Morris County Prosecutor’s Office said Monday.

Nguyen called police to her apartment Thursday at 3:21 p.m., saying the baby was vomiting and possibly having a seizure. Nguyen was interviewed Friday at the Mount Olive Police Department and told Robert McNally, a Morris County Prosecutor’s office detective, that the baby woke up around 3 p.m., and that Nguyen gave the child 6 ounces of formula, according to the affidavit.

The boy was sitting on a hardwood floor and began vomiting after finishing the formula, Nguyen told McNally.

She told police she picked up and moved the child away from the vomit and began to clean the floor with a towel, the affidavit stated.

“When she turned her back, the baby made a loud screeching noise and fell straight back, hitting his head on the hardwood floor,” Nguyen told McNally.

She then walked back over to the child and saw his body becoming rigid, and his eyes rolling, and assumed the baby was having a seizure, the affidavit said. Nguyen picked him up and cradled him in her right arm. She saw the boy’s jaw clench and feared the baby might swallow his tongue, so she stuck her left index finger in the baby’s mouth. She said the boy bit down on the finger, startling Nguyen, causing her to jerk backwards.

“The baby then slid off of her hand falling headfirst towards the hardwood floor,” McNally wrote. She stated that his head hit the floor and that she reached for him while he was falling, and she grabbed one of his legs.

“As she tried to pull him back up by one leg, she lost her grip a second time and he hit his head on the hardwood floor a second time,” according to the affidavit.

She then picked him back up and called for her 6-year-old daughter to get her cell phone, and that’s when Nguyen called police.

Nguyen laid the baby on a table, at which point he began to gurgle. She tried to perform CPR by doing three chest compression and two breaths before paramedics arrived.

“Tam Nguyen denied any maltreatment of the baby and stated that she did not know how the child became so severely injured,” the affidavit stated.

McNally later interviewed Dr. Catherine Mazzola, the boy’s treating physician, operating surgeon and board certified pediatric neurosurgeon.

She told authorities the child suffered multiple skull fractures, a left subdural hematoma and massive brain herniation.

Mazzola said it was her opinion that the child “had been injured by blunt head force trauma and was shaken, as well,” according to the affidavit.

Blood-clotting in the brain was indicative of the baby being shaken, she told police. Mazzola said the baby became injured by a “tremendous amount of force that was completely inconsistent with the Tam Nguyen’s version of events,” the affidavit stated.

Mazzola also said the injuries suffered by the baby occurred within about three hours of the child’s arrival.

She said the injuries were not the result of an accidental fall or seizure.

Nguyen, a Vietnamese native whose immigration status is being checked, is in the Morris County jail in default of $150,000 bail. She also was ordered to surrender her passport and to have no contact with the victim or his family.

Nguyen apparently met the baby’s family, also Vietnamese, at the church were they celebrate Mass. Police said Nguyen babysat for the family over a six-week period while the mother and father worked, and that the care always took place at her Budd Lake apartment.

http://www.dailyrecord.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071231/UPDATES01/71231019

I hate stories like this, so sad!

Baby sitter pleads guilty; Admits shaking and then dropping crying tot on head, paralyzing him

Published: Friday, December 05, 2008, 7:55 PM
Updated: Tuesday, December 16, 2008, 7:57 PM
Carly Rothman/The Star-Ledger

A Mount Olive baby sitter admitted yesterday that when the infant she was caring for would not stop crying, she shook the child, then dropped him on his head, leaving the 11-month-old paralyzed and blind.

Khac Tam Nguyen, 31, faces up to 10 years in prison for her guilty plea to aggravated assault, and still could be prosecuted for homicide if the baby, Khiem Nguyen, dies.

The Dec. 27, 2007, attack also left the child, who is not related to the defendant, unable to swallow, and he must be fed through a tube in his stomach, clinical social worker Heidi Schleifer said.

More at link:
http://blog.nj.com/ledgerarchives/2008/12/baby_sitter_pleads_guilty_admi.html


Khac Tam Nguyen

Guilty Plea
Location: EMCF
Sentence Date: 01/22/2009

Offense: Aggravated Assault - Serious Bodily Injury
Sentence: 7 years 7 months 24 days - 9 years

Projected Release Date: 08/20/2015

words fail me. I've stopped and started 5 times and I just cant say what I feel.

Khac Tam Nguyen

Guilty Plea
Location: EMCF
Sentence Date: 01/22/2009

Offense: Aggravated Assault - Serious Bodily Injury
Sentence: 7 years 7 months 24 days - 9 years

Projected Release Date: 08/20/2015

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What??!

I find her sentence completely unacceptable for the level of damage she did to that poor baby. The baby is now blind, paralyzed and can't swallow and in a few years she can just pick up with her life. Since the baby has suffered a fate even worse than death, why hasn't she been charged with murder?

She'll be free now.

2009 article:

The "accident" as his parents call it, left Khiem blind and severely brain-damaged. It left the parents, who both worked long hours in a nail salon, hopelessly broke, facing bills for medical care and equipment. Their dreams of a good education for their little strongboy were gone.

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http://www.nj.com/news/mustsee/index.ssf/2009/06/despite_hurdles_nj_family_movi.html