QUEENS — A babysitter has been charged with assault and child endangerment for burning a 2-year-old boy's hands while punishing him, the Queens District Attorney's office said Thursday.
Yvette Douglas, 20, of Cambria Heights, is accused of forcing the boy's hands into scalding water for about two minutes because he got dirty while eating waffles with syrup, the DA said.
The boy suffered severe burns to his hands and may require surgery, according to the DA’s office.
“As a babysitter, the defendant had an obligation to provide a safe environment for the child and keep him from harm,” Queens District Attorney Richard Brown said in a statement. “Instead, she is alleged to have tortured and caused him physical and emotional injury simply because he behaved like any other 2-year-old child eating a plate of waffles with syrup.”
The boy’s mother left her son and her 3-year-old daughter at Douglas’ home on 208th Street around 7 a.m. last Friday, prosecutors said.
At approximately 10:15 a.m. that day, Douglas called the mother and told her that her son had been burned because he pulled a pot of boiling water off of the stove.
The child was rushed to Nassau University Hospital Burn Unit, where doctors examined the boy’s hands and realized that Douglas’ account was inconsistent with the nature of the injuries.
The babysitter later admitted that the child had been eating waffles and got syrup on his hands. She got angry when the boy refused to clean them, according to the Queens DA’s office.
Douglas also stated that after holding his hands under the hot water for about two minutes, she saw that they had become red and that the skin “sagged,” prosecutors said.
Douglas is accused of continuing to hurt the boy even as he cried and struggled to move away from the water, according to the DA's office.
The babysitter was arraigned Thursday night on charges of assault and endangering the welfare of a child. If convicted, she faces up to seven years in prison, according to Brown.
She's being held on $75,000 bond or $35,000 cash bail and is due back in court on Feb. 18.
Douglas' attorney did not immediately return a phone call seeking comment.
