ALEX MEDINA - 3 Months - Lawrence (I-495 nr NH border) MA

A Lawrence man who had failed to attend
court-mandated parenting classes after being imprisoned for physically
assaulting his infant daughter several years ago is accused of shaking
his 3-month-old son to death this week, said the office of Essex
District Attorney Jonathan W. Blodgett.



Evidence in the death of Alexis Medina’s son,
Alex, points to shaken-baby syndrome, according to hospital and police
records. Authorities said the baby also suffered broken ribs. In
interviews with police this week, Medina, 23 — who has at least four
children with two mothers — said that he had cared for the infant boy
in the hours before his death and admitted that he had grown frustrated
when he could not easily soothe Alex’s crying, police said.
On
Tuesday morning, the report says, the father “told us that he placed
his son face down in his crib and pushed on his back until he became
quiet and fell asleep. Medina told us he had done that in the past, and
it has usually worked and his son would fall asleep.’’
According
to the police report, sometime earlier that day, the baby’s mother,
Jocelyn DeJesus, called Medina to say the infant had stopped breathing.
The boy was taken to Lawrence General Hospital and then to Tufts Medical
Center in Boston, where he was pronounced dead Wednesday, authorities
said.
Medina was arraigned
on Wednesday in Lawrence District Court on assault and battery charges
and ordered held without bail. He will be charged with murder, Essex
prosecutors said.
State
child-protection officials said there is little they can do to stop an
ex-convict with a history of child abuse from taking care of other
children after prison time has been served. Only a specific new
complaint against the person relating to child abuse or neglect could
result in prohibiting him or her from doing child care.
“We
have no legal basis to do something like that,’’ said Alison Goodwin,
spokeswoman for the state Department of Children and Families.
Jetta
Bernier — executive director of Massachusetts Citizens for Children, a
child-abuse prevention organization — said deaths and injuries from
shaken-baby syndrome are tragically common across the country and are
disproportionately caused by troubled young men, typically between
ages 18 and 25, who do not know how to soothe a young child or how to
ask for help if they are overwhelmed.
“This is a classic situation,’’ said Bernier, whose organization works statewide to encourage parenting classes.
Medina
has a history of financial troubles and has been repeatedly accused of
physically lashing out at his children. In 2007 and 2008, while living
in Methuen, he was accused of repeated physical assaults on a daughter,
one of two children he had with Willmarie DeJesus, who said she is no
relation to Jocelyn DeJesus.
While living with Willmarie DeJesus,
Medina was also accused of violating a restraining order against her, as
well as sending her threatening messages on the Internet site MySpace.
During this time, according to court records, Medina at least once
fractured his daughter’s skull, and once caused her to temporarily stop
breathing when he pushed a bottle into her mouth too hard.
Willmarie DeJesus said that Medina had a temper and had trouble holding a job.
“Bosses, he would give them attitude,’’ she said in an interview.
She broke down crying when she was told of Alex’s death. “That’s horrible. I know it’s not my child, but that’s horrible.’’
She said her daughter, now 3, whom Medina was convicted of assaulting, has made a full recovery.
Willmarie
DeJesus said she and Medina were married and had custody of their
children before his arrest. She said her mother briefly took custody of
both children after Medina’s arrest, but that she regained custody
after taking parenting classes. She said she and Medina are divorced and
that she has an active restraining order against him.
Facing
criminal charges for abusing that daughter, Medina ultimately accepted
a plea agreement to serve an 18-month prison term, said Essex district
attorney spokesman Steve O’Connell. O’Connell said the case was
reviewed for indictment, which would send it to Superior Court for
possibly stiffer sentences; however, prosecutors decided against that
option because it was Medina’s first offense and they concluded he was
unlikely to get a harsher sentence than 18 months.
During
his prison term at the Essex County House of Correction, he applied
for, but was denied, parole. Parole Board member Pamela Lombardini, in
explaining her decision to reject, said, “This man is a danger.’’
He
finished his term by the autumn of 2009, and was ordered by the
Probation Department to attend parenting and anger-management classes,
as well as submit to random screening for alcohol and drug use.
Medina
apparently chose to ignore the parenting class requirement, according
to a violation notice filed by the Probation Department Wednesday,
after the baby boy died.
It
remains unclear whether Medina complied with any other probation
conditions over the past year. Coria Holland, a spokeswoman for the
Probation Department, said in an e-mail yesterday that “this case is
currently under review.’’
Meanwhile,
Medina moved into a Lawrence apartment with Jocelyn DeJesus, the
mother of Alex, who was born Sept. 8, and another child by Medina.
Lawrence
police responded to their apartment on Inman Street Tuesday morning
and found the infant unresponsive. The child was rushed to Lawrence
General Hospital, then transferred to Tufts New England Medical Center,
where he was pronounced dead Wednesday, according to Blodgett’s office.
Medina was interviewed by State Police and Lawrence police at Tufts, where the family had gathered, according to police.
Medina
first offered an innocent explanation, saying he was tossing the
infant and catching him. Police pressed him to explain how Alex came to
be so severely injured by Tuesday. In videotaped statements, Medina
ultimatelyexpressed his frustrations taking care of the baby and acknowledged his prior child abuse convictions in Methuen.
Lawrence
Police Chief John Romero said his department and other police agencies
are not routinely notified that a person convicted of child abuse has
been released from prison and is potentially caring for children again,
and there are no government systems in place to do that.
“It’s just a tragic story, a terrible story,’’ he said.

Can somebody please tell me why a girl would want to have a baby with a child abuser and why she would leave him alone to care for it???? Alexis Medina is not the only person responsible for what happened. Jocelyn DeJesus is equally to blame IMO. What a pity we can't arrest people for making STUPID and CARELESS decisions.

After further scrutiny of the case, the state
Probation Department yesterday said a Lawrence father who was accused
this week of shaking his 3-month-old son to death had complied with
court requirements that he attend parenting classes due to his past
physical abuse of an infant daughter.
Agency spokeswoman Coria Holland, said the
probation staff erred when it told the court that Alexis Medina, 23, of
Lawrence had failed to attend parenting classes, one of the conditions
of his release from an 18-month prison term in 2009 for repeated
assaults on his baby daughter.
A
more in-depth review, she said, found that Medina met his probation
requirements, including attending 14 sessions of anger-management
sessions and 13 sessions of parenting classes, as well as agreeing to
random alcohol and drug testing.
When
asked why a probation officer filed a court record stating otherwise on
Wednesday, the day after Medina’s 3-month-old son was hospitalized and
later died of alleged shaken-baby syndrome, Holland replied, “It was
clearly a mistake.’’
She
said agency records about Medina’s parenting class attendance were
unclear, and a staff member filed a notice of probation violation with
the court. She said the agency now has written and verbal confirmation
from the education facilities that Medina attended, as well as his
probation officer, that Medina had complied with his probation
requirements.
Holland
declined a Globe request to see these written confirmations, saying they
were confidential records. She said that the agency expects to correct
the court record, at least by Jan. 7, when Medina is expected to be
arraigned on murder charges in the death of his infant son, Alex.
According
to police reports, Medina was caring for his son on Monday night, when
he became frustrated with the child’s crying. He told police that “he
sometimes gets rough with his son and may hug him too hard at times.’’
Police said that on Tuesday morning, Medina also acknowledged placing
his son face down in the crib and pushing “on his back until he became
quiet and fell asleep.’’ Around 10 a.m. Tuesday morning, while Medina
had left the house with his stepfather, he received a phone call from
Alex’s mother saying that the baby had stopped breathing.
The
boy’s death has prompted numerous law enforcement officials and
child-protection advocates to ask how vulnerable children can be
protected from parents and other adults with known histories of such
violence. Lawrence Police Chief John Romero said that the baby’s death
triggers questions about how effective parenting classes are.
Marylou
Sudders, head of the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of
Cruelty to Children, said she wonders why the Probation Department could
not, as a condition of his release, prohibit him from being alone with
children, given his extensive history of abuse against his own babies.
“What was the supervision over and above attending parenting classes?’’ she said.
Still,
Jetta Bernier, executive director of Massachusetts Citizens for
Children, which focuses largely on child-abuse prevention, said one of
the most important safeguards against more shaken-baby injuries and
deaths is to educate new parents about the dangers.
She
also questioned whether the court-mandated parenting classes require
teachers to cover the hazards of violently shaking babies.
Bernier
called on state lawmakers to take more seriously parent education on
this topic, including full funding of a 2006 state law that requires
hospitals to teach parents about this problem prior to taking their
newborns home.
She said the
Legislature appropriated $350,000 to help lead this education effort in
the first year of the law’s passage, but has cut back funding
consistently every year since then.
The
aim of this instruction, by qualified nursing staff and through
educational brochures, is to teach parents ways to soothe a crying baby,
the option to ask for help if frustrated, and information about how
shaking babies, given their fragile bodies, can cause catastrophic
damage.
She said such
education is the only way to help prevent these all-too-familiar
tragedies, which injure and kill some 4,000 children nationwide each
year. Bernier said her organization is hoping to start a
public-relations campaign this year with star professional athletes,
with the theme of “real men don’t shake babies.’’ She said the
campaign’s goal is to reach young men who are behind 3 of 4 cases of
children injured through violent shaking.

Medina met his probation
requirements, including attending 14 anger-management
sessions and 13 sessions of parenting classes

---Uhhh, let me guess. He wasn't paying attention in class?
He was in the men's room when they said it was a bad thing to kill your child?
He had a brain fart and totally lost that part where all this information was stored?

TomTerrific0420 wrote:

Medina met his probation
requirements, including attending 14 anger-management
sessions and 13 sessions of parenting classes

---Uhhh, let me guess. He wasn't paying attention in class?
He was in the men's room when they said it was a bad thing to kill your child?
He had a brain fart and totally lost that part where all this information was stored?

Nice one Tom. It's bloody ridiculous. We don't learn how not to kill someone in class. You've either got it or you don't.

August 20, 2011
Man indicted on murder charge in death of infant son
By Jim Patten
jpatten@eagletribune.com

LAWRENCE — A city man has been indicted in the death of his 3-month-old son.

Alexis Medina, 23, of 4 Inman St., is charged in the indictment returned Thursday by the Essex County Grand Jury, with first degree murder, assault and battery causing serious bodily injury and assault and battery.

Medina, who was previously jailed for assaulting his daughter and fracturing her skull, was arrested Dec. 28 and charged with assault and battery on a child causing serious bodily injury.

The infant was having difficulty breathing and was later diagnosed by emergency room doctors with having broken ribs, a broken vertebrae and other symptoms association with shaken baby syndrome.

In 2008, Medina was sentenced to 18 months in jail for causing his daughter's skull fracture when she was 6 months old, court and police records indicate.

The boy died Jan. 5 at Tufts Medical Center in Boston after lingering in a brain dead state.

According to prosecutors, although Medina admitted to shaking the baby, the cause of death appeared to be suffocation when his father intentionally shoved his face into a pillow. The child also had 11 healing rib fractures.

Steve O'Connell, spokesman for the Essex District Attorney's Office said Medina is expected to be arraigned on the new charges in Salem Superior Court within the next few weeks.

If he is convicted on the first degree murder charge, Medina faces life in prison without parole, O'Connell said.

http://www.eagletribune.com/local/x531748190/Man-indicted-on-murder-charge-in-death-of-infant-son