Kettering man who seriously injures newborn son gets 2½ years

ajc.com

A Kettering man who caused serious injuries to his newborn son in March while changing the 2-week-old’s diaper will spend more than two years in prison.

Stephen Lee Scholz, 26, was sentenced Dec. 5 by Montgomery County Common Pleas Judge E. Gerald Parker Jr. to 2½ years in prison. He pleaded guilty Nov. 7 to one felony count of endangering children. Two additional counts of endangering children and domestic violence, all felony charges, were dismissed, according to plea documents.

Kettering police were dispatched just after 11 p.m. March 26 to Dayton Children’s Hospital for a report of child abuse at a house in the 2000 block of Courtland Avenue.

A detective noted in an affidavit filed in Kettering Municipal Court that the 2-week-old boy had swelling and discoloration to the left side of this face and to his left eye.

“He appeared to have a severe injury to the inside of his left cheek. The inside of the left cheek was protruding out toward the middle of his mouth,” the affidavit stated.

Stephen Scholz

Credit: Montgomery County Jail

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Credit: Montgomery County Jail

Hospital staff told the officer they believed it was buccal fat — a pad of adipose tissue in the cheek below each cheekbone — coming out of his cheek, according to the document.

The child’s mother told police that Scholz was changing the baby’s diaper while she was in the bathroom. When she came out of the bathroom, he was laying on Scholz’s chest crying. The woman took the baby and saw the injuries, and said that Scholz assaulted her, the affidavit stated.

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