Two South Florida parents have been accused of “severe physical abuse" after they took their daughter of less than two weeks to the hospital with a bruised right ankle and X-rays revealed more troubling injuries, an arrest report said.
According to the report, 23-year-old Jameelah Lakendra Cosper and Giovani Jose Garces, 26, took their baby girl to Hialeah Hospital on Jan. 28 after they realized that her right ankle was bruised.
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The baby was born on Jan. 15.
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Police said doctors at the hospital found that the baby girl had a fractured right ankle, and thereby sent her to Nicklaus Children’s Hospital for further evaluation.
According to the arrest report, a more in-depth X-ray revealed that the baby had yet another serious injury: a fractured skull.
The hospital staff suspected it may have been child abuse called the police as well as the Florida Department of Children and Families, the report said.
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The DCF removed the baby from the home and placed her in the care of her aunt, the arrest report said.
The report said on Feb. 6, OLPD investigators conducted a search warrant of his apartment on Northwest 30th Avenue and took multiple crime scene photos.
On Feb. 12, officials received a medical evaluation from Dr. Walter Lambert of the University of Miami's Child Protection Team.
According to the arrest report, Lambert's evaluation stated that the child was a "two-week-old baby girl with a left-sided complex parietal skull fracture with associated extra-axial hemorrhage as well as healing fractures of the right distal tibia and fibula. The father provided a history of a fall from his arms while bathing his daughter the day before the baby was taken to Hialeah Hospital; the mother did not provide Hialeah Hospital ER any specific history of trauma, including this reported fall from the father’s arms. It is also worrisome that the parents did not seek prompt medical attention after the fall from the father’s arms. Neither parent provided a specific injury event to explain the leg fractures. In my medical opinion, these injuries represent severe physical abuse.”
Authorities arrested Garces on Friday and arrested Cosper on Monday. They were both being held without bond at Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center.
Cosper and Garces are facing felony counts of aggravated child abuse and child neglect causing great bodily harm.
