Pine City Woman Charged After Alleged Physical and Sexual Abuse of Child in her Care

(KNSI) — A home health nurse is facing several felony charges after severely abusing the child she was supposed to take care of.

Please be advised the details of this story are upsetting.

According to the criminal complaint filed in Benton County, authorities were contacted by Benton County Human Services after the mother of a six-year-old boy said she noticed marks on her child’s face and bruising on his right arm and right leg. The child has several physical and cerebral maladies, including epilepsy, Crohn’s disease, a form of quadriplegia and other physical ailments. He needs a feeding tube and breathing tube for when he sleeps and is completely dependent on others for his daily care. He is also nonverbal.

The child’s mother checked her nanny cam from the morning of August 4th to discover 51-year-old Leigh Anne Schwartz appearing to punish the boy for having a soiled diaper. She is seen on camera yelling at him, forcibly moving his head around, pushing his face into the mattress, picking him up, and then “plops him onto his left side.” That afternoon, Schwartz is seen smothering the child with her hand over his mouth and nose and pushing his head into a wall before forcibly changing his position and yelling at him again.

Other footage shows her yelling and cursing at him, mocking his crying, and sexually abusing him.

Schwartz is charged with first-degree criminal sexual conduct, child torture, and five counts of malicious punishment of a child.

Upon being confronted with footage from an incident on August 25th, she allegedly told her supervisors she was working too much and “having a rough time overall.” She said she couldn’t believe the mother “took it this far without talking to her.” She claimed she was having a frustrating day and admitted to “being a little rough” when moving the boy, but denied it was intentional. She told investigators she had never done anything like this before and said it would never happen again.

Bail has not been set.

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