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Woman convicted of scalding infant
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
Amanda C. Hall, who went on trial last week in Trumbull County Common Pleas Court, accused of holding a 19-month-old girl’s arm under scalding water, has been convicted of child endangering.
Hall, 31, of Northfield Avenue Northwest, could get up to eight years in prison when Judge John M. Stuard sentences her in about five weeks. She remains free on bond.
Judge Stuard, who heard the case without a jury, rendered the guilty verdict Thursday.
Hall was baby-sitting Teiarra Houseman on Oct. 14, 2010, at her house when the child suffered the burns, prosecutors said.
Hall said the girl turned on the scalding water herself after receiving a bath, but prosecutors said Hall recklessly tortured or abused Teiarra by purposely immersing her arm in hot water.
The girl suffered a burn on her hand and lower forearm that required treatment at Akron Children’s Hospital.
Now 21/2 years old, the child has to keep her arm covered in hot and cold weather and isn’t allowed to go swimming, her grandmother, Ronda Scott, said.
“If you hurt a child, that’s the worst thing in the world,” Scott said.
The girl’s mother, Belinda Houseman, said she was “so happy” when Judge Stuard announced the guilty verdict in court Thursday.
Scott Arnold, father of Hall’s two oldest children, said he’s hopeful Hall will go to prison because it seems that she has worked “loopholes” in the system for long enough.
“When is enough enough? It’s unreal,” Arnold said.
Also on Thursday, Judge Stuard sentenced Michael R. Frasca Jr., 36, of North Cedar Street, Niles, to seven years in prison after Frasca’s conviction at trial in June on charges of felonious assault and abduction.
Prosecutors said Frasca slashed a man several times in the arm and hand with a large folding knife April 5, 2010, and abducted a woman at his North Cedar Street home June 9, 2010, holding her against her will by threats of bodily harm or death.
Judge Stuard also denied Frasca’s request for a new trial.