QUEENS — Two Queens parents are accused of abusing their 6-week-old baby son so badly that the child will require "long-term feeding rehabilitation, antibiotic therapy and multiple reconstructive surgeries to his nose," the Queens District Attorney’s office said Wednesday.
Joyce Nazareth, 23, and Victor Lugo, 27, who lived in a Howard Johnson hotel on Jamaica Avenue in Queens Village, are charged with assault, reckless endangerment and endangering the welfare of a child, prosecutors said.
Their newborn, Liam Lugo, had "multiple fractures throughout his body, his nose eroded as a result of severe infections [and] he weighed less than he did at birth" when he was admitted to a local hospital on Aug. 22, the DA’s office said.
Nazareth and Lugo also failed to seek immediate medical treatment even when they saw the skin peeling off the baby’s nose and puss and fluids coming out of an open wound in the boy’s right arm, according to the criminal complaint.
The physician, who examined the boy once he was brought to the hospital determined that Liam suffered multiple fractures to his clavicle, ribs and right humerus, the criminal complaint read.
He also had a severe nose infection.
The boy, who was born on July 11, weighting 7 pounds and 13 ounces, weighed 6 pounds and 8 ounces six weeks later, prosecutors said.
“Just weeks old, this baby allegedly suffered extensively at the hands of the very people who should have loved him the most,” Queens District Attorney Richard Brown said in a statement.
The couple admitted that Liam had never been taken to see a pediatrician, according to the complaint.
The mother also tried to blame her other son, who is 1, for the swelling on the infant’s arm saying that the boy fell off the bed on Liam.
She confessed, however, that at some point she squeezed the baby “until she heard a crack." On another occasion, she jerked on the boy's arm and picked him up roughly causing swelling, according to court documents.
Both parents were arraigned on Sept. 2, and are being held without bail. They are due back in court on Sept. 16.
If convicted, they each face up to 25 years in prison, prosecutors said.
Nazareth and Lugo's attorneys did not immediately respond to a call for comment.
The couple's 1-year-old son is now in the custody of the Administration for Children's Services, according to the DA's office.
