Dad charged with 1st-degree assault for "horrific injuries" inflicted on newborn son (The Dalles, Oregon)

Dad KAEDYN DRAKE is charged with 1st-degree assault, 1st-degree criminal mistreatment, criminal nonsupport, and strangulation. This @$$wipe basically abused his infant son multiple times from birth, which resulted in "absolutely horrific" injuries. The baby was removed from the custody of his parents when he was only 50 days old. It is likely that the father's rights will be severed. The mother is struggling to get hers reinstated. It's not stated here that the mother also abused the baby. Most likely she is being blamed for not being able to stop the daddy from abusing the baby, which even though we hate to admit it, is not always possible against a male who is bigger and stronger than you are.

http://www.thedalleschronicle.com/news/2010/04/news04-04-10-02.shtml

April 4, 2010

Try custody case quickly
Crowley sets dependency trial for May 18-19
By Keri Brenner
The Dalles Chronicle

A circuit court judge said Friday he would discourage any delays on a juvenile custody trial of a The Dalles infant boy whose 17-year-old father is accused of injuring the child on more than a half-dozen occasions.

“I want to deal with this case very quickly,” said Circuit Court Presiding Judge Paul Crowley at a pretrial hearing for father Kaedyn Drake at Wasco County Courthouse in The Dalles. “This is a child who, on his 50th day on the planet, was removed from his parents.”

Crowley ordered the now-3-month-old infant, whose name is being withheld as per The Chronicle’s policy of protecting the identities of alleged abuse victims, to stay in protective custody with the state Department of Human Services pending the trial.

“The fundamental rights of the child take precedence,” Crowley added. “This infant, in my mind, is the poster child for the Adoption and Safe Families Act,” a reference to a 1997 federal law that reworked the national foster care system to put first priority on the needs of the child, rather than those of the biological parents.

Crowley confirmed May 18 and 19 as the date for the juvenile dependency trial to determine custody for the infant, a separate trial from the father’s adult criminal case. Wasco County Deputy District Attorney Leslie Wolf has filed a petition to maintain the infant in DHS protective custody, but both attorneys Karen Ostrye, representing the child’s mother Alexis.

Garrelts and Robert Raschio, representing Kaedyn Drake, are contesting the petition.

“This is a very young child who is still in the bonding process,” Ostrye told Crowley in requesting there be no delays on the May 18-19 date. “We want the baby returned to the mother as soon as possible.”

Raschio said later that by contesting Wolf’s petition, he was “denying the allegations in the petition, that my client [Drake] injured his son,” but he declined further comment on who should get custody of the baby.

Wolf, at a March 10 pretrial hearing, described a long list of alleged injuries to the baby as reported by medical personnel, she said. Those included 11 broken ribs, bleeding from both eyes, brain trauma and bruises on his arms, chest, head and mouth.

Raschio said he had no word yet on whether Drake would register a plea in the adult criminal case against him prior to the judge hearing the May 18-19 juvenile dependency case that is tracking alongside it. At a previous hearing, Raschio waived his client’s right to a speedy trial in the adult criminal case. No date has been set for that trial.

Crowley, who on March 10 called the injury allegations “absolutely horrific,” ordered a status hearing for 8:15 a.m. on May 4 to check on whether there were any plea or new developments prior to the scheduled trial.

“This is my biggest priority case right now,” Crowley added.

Drake, who appeared in person Friday dressed in an orange T-shirt and gray sweatpants and accompanied by a corrections deputy, is charged with three counts of first-degree assault, three counts of first-degree criminal mistreatment, criminal nonsupport and strangulation. He is being held on $250,000 bail at NORCOR regional jail.

Friday was the youth’s first public in-person appearance since he turned himself in to authorities on March 3. At two prior pretrial hearings, he appeared via video from the jail.

With friends and family filling the courtroom behind him, Drake sat quietly at the front table during most of the proceedings with his arms in his lap and handcuffs on his wrists.

Toward the end, however, he began to weep softly, according to Raschio, who was sitting next to him.

“You have a 17-year-old boy sitting handcuffed, sobbing, with tears running down his face,” Raschio said later. “Put that in the paper.”

Terrie Dunn, an adult who accompanied eight high school girls in attendance at Friday’s hearing, said her group came to support Kaedyn Drake.

“I’m a mom and an aunt of his friends,” Dunn said. “I’ve known him all his life.”

Dunn sees the case as “very sad,” she said.

“It takes a village to raise a child,” Dunn added. “It seems like this time, the village failed.”