COPPERAS COVE (August 10, 2012)--Diamond Leshawn Pender, 18, and her boyfriend, Jacquel Torran O'Neal, 18, were in the Coryell County Jail Friday, charged in connection with the sexual abuse of Pender’s 7-month-old daughter.
Pender is charged with injury to a child/serious bodily injury.
Her bond was set at $500,000.
O’Neal is charged with aggravated sexual assault of a child and injury to a child/serious bodily injury.
His bonds total $1 million.
Arrest warrant affidavits say that the two were arrested after Copperas Cove police and Child Protective Services officials were sent on Aug. 4 to a home in the 300 block of Pinto Drive in response to a report that the infant was bleeding from her vaginal area and that her mother “knew about the bleeding, but did not take the child to the hospital because she did not want to get the authorities involved.”
The girl was taken to Scott & White Hospital in Temple where an examination revealed severe vaginal bruising and tearing that required surgical repair, the affidavits say.
Doctors also found numerous bruises, a burn on the girl’s abdomen, factures of both legs and three broken ribs, the affidavits say.
Pender told an investigator she wasn’t aware of the injuries and didn’t know how they occurred, the affidavits say.
O’Neal told the investigator he used his finger to enter the infant’s vagina “to clean it out” while changing a diaper on Aug. 2, which was the likely cause of the bleeding, and said the burn was most likely caused by a cigarette that he was smoking near the girl, the affidavits say.
He said the infant frequently fell off a bed and said he thought that was the cause of her injuries, the affidavit said.
Two other children who lived in the home were interviewed at the Belton Child Advocacy Center and one, a 10-year-old boy, said he saw O’Neal press on the infant’s abdomen several times “until she pooped,” the affidavit said.
He also said he saw O’Neal hold the infant by her ankles while she was screaming, hit her in the legs and scratch her with his fingernails, the affidavit said.
He also said Pender was present when the assaults occurred and said that the couple “would frequently argue about it.”
