Police file new charges in Middleborough child abuse case

(Robert E. Klein for the Boston Globe)

By John R. Ellement and Michael Levenson, Globe Staff

MIDDLEBOROUGH -- Police this afternoon arrested the mother of a 7-year-old boy whose genitals were allegedly burned with cigarettes.

Michelle Henry, 30, was handcuffed as police searched her apartment on Archer Court. She has been charged with reckless endangerment and assault and battery on a child causing serious bodily injury.

Henry wept during her arraignment this afternoon in Wrentham District Court. “She knew what had been done to her son because he had reported it to her," said prosecutor Laura E. Weierman. "She was there when it occurred.”

Defense attorney Rachel Seeley-Ruel said in court that Henry also had been a victim of abuse at the hands of her boyfriend, David J. Privette. Seeley-Ruel said that Henry had reported the abuse to authorities, but the lawyer did not elaborate. Henry was ordered held without bail pending a dangerousness hearing scheduled for March 27.

The boyfriend, Privette, has been accused of repeated abuse that allegedly continued despite several warnings to the Department of Social Services. Police also filed new charges today against Privette that allege that he permanently disfigured the child with burns. Privette, who has been held without bail since his arrest Monday, now faces two counts of indecent assault and battery and mayhem, which is a felony that can carry a lengthy prison term.

Privette, 22, is a former convict who had served time for crack cocaine possession and assaulting a police officer and has a history of violence and drugs dating at least to when he was 18 years old. He is accused of beating his girlfriend’s son with a belt, burning the boy's genitals with lit cigarettes, and urinating on his head.

DSS officials had known of neglect in the home as far back as 2002 and were informed of three reports of possible physical abuse since late last year, including reports of a beating with a belt in December and burns with a cigarette on March 4. But DSS did not notify law enforcement officials until Monday, when teachers discovered burn marks on his genitals, pelvis, and buttocks.

Privette’s great aunt, Carrie Boylorn, said the horrific charges against her nephew were hard to believe.

“I have been in such a shock because that doesn’t sound like David,” Boylorn, 67, said in an interview outside the house in Dorchester where she raised Privette. “I don’t know David to be sexual at all towards children.”

Privette’s parents abandoned him when he was two weeks old, Boylorn said, and she had raised him as her son. He attended Grover Cleveland Middle School and Jeremiah E. Burke High School in Boston, and had hoped to become a police officer or firefighter. She recalled him as a well-behaved boy who returned home promptly at dark. More recently, he had played well with her grandchildren, she said. She last saw him two weeks ago, when he was “like the same old David,” funny and outgoing, she said.

Privette’s court-appointed lawyer, Thomas G. Pyne of Plymouth, said he had spoken to his client Tuesday and that Privette had denied the allegations and asserted that he was not at his girlfriend’s house at the time the abuse occurred.

“He was flabbergasted” by the charges, Pyne said.

Middleborough Police Chief Gary J. Russell blasted state social services.

"This kid was sent home to be tortured for another 13 days, as far as I'm concerned, because somebody dropped the ball," Middleborough Police Chief Gary J. Russell said in an interview Wednesday. "It makes you want to cry. This kid was tortured."

State social services officials said they had investigated all the reports and had been to the house at least four times since the original report of physical abuse on Dec. 19.

On their first visit in December, they concluded the boy had been spanked with a belt and urged Henry and Privette not to use corporal punishment. Case workers returned to the house in February and found nothing wrong, officials said. They went again after the boy told his school nurse March 4 that Privette had burned him with a cigarette, but never checked the boy's body for burn marks or other injuries.

"We'd have to acknowledge that there was a red flag that was presented by the allegation that child had been burned, and that probably should have been checked," said Marilyn Anderson Chase, assistant secretary for children, youth, and families in the Executive Office of Health and Human Services. "If we determine that the child has been injured or burned, it should have been reported to the police."

Chase said DSS would fully review the case to determine whether the agency missed earlier signs the boy was being physically abused.

Privette was arraigned Tuesday in Wareham District Court on the initial charges of two counts of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon and assault and battery on a child. He pleaded not guilty and was held without bail pending a dangerousness hearing Tuesday.

The boy and his 3-year-old sister were taken into DSS custody Monday. Henry declined to speak to a reporter yesterday.

DSS first came into contact with Henry in 2002, after receiving a report that she was neglecting her son, then 2 years old, state officials who oversee the agency said yesterday. Social workers ordered Henry to attend parenting classes and ultimately concluded she had responded well to the training.

Over the next several years, DSS received sporadic reports of neglect but nothing indicated physical abuse, Chase said.

Henry started dating Privette several months ago, state officials said. He had been recently released from the Suffolk House of Correction, where he served a one-year sentence for possession of crack cocaine and assaulting a police officer in Boston.

Around that time, the boy appeared to change, said some of Henry's neighbors in the small public housing complex where she lived. The boy used to be "chunky" and outgoing, but in recent weeks he had lost a significant amount of weight, was kept inside by his mother, and seemed withdrawn, said one neighbor, Jamie Santos. "I didn't even recognize him."

On Dec. 19, the boy was misbehaving in class at Memorial Early Childhood Center and was taken to the nurse's office. There he told a nurse that his mother and her boyfriend had hit him with a belt, according to a police report filed Monday. When the nurse told the boy she would have to call his mother, he pleaded with her not to, crying out, "No, I don't want no more whippings," according to the report.

The nurse called DSS, which sent case workers to the boy's home and initiated closer contact with the family.

On March 4, the boy told a special education teacher that he didn't want to go home because Privette "puts a cigarette on his private parts," the police report said. A school nurse examined him and found a V-shaped bruise on his back. He said he had fallen on ice. Again, the school called DSS. It was unclear what case workers did during a visit to the boy's home.

"There is no indication that anybody actually physically looked" for burn marks on the boy, Chase said. Henry told case workers that she had broken off her relationship with Privette.

On Monday, the nurse contacted DSS officials a third time, after the boy told her that Privette had beaten him again with a belt and urinated on his head while he was taking a bath. DSS then contacted the Plymouth district attorney's office, which contacted police. Privette was arrested that day.

Court records show that when Privette was 18 in September 2003, he and two other teenagers accosted a man on Beacon Hill, covered his eyes, pointed a pellet gun at his head and stole his wallet, cellphone, and four theater tickets. Privette pleaded guilty to larceny and was placed on probation until May 2005. In June 2005, he was arrested again, this time for possession of crack cocaine near a school.

Four months later, Privette was in Dorchester when police officers saw him on the street. They learned he was wanted on a warrant and tried to arrest him. Privette pushed one of the officers and ran away, leading police on a foot chase through several backyards before they finally caught up with him on Geneva Avenue. Police managed to subdue him after a violent struggle that left one officer with cuts and scrapes, according to court documents. In October 2005, he was sentenced to a year in the Suffolk County House of Correction for the possession of the crack cocaine and the assault on the officer.

• Comment
• Permalink
• Email

next article in local news Sex assault charges dropped against Patrick aide previous article in local news Watch webcast of House casino debate