A 1-year-old girl from the Bronx whose mother’s boyfriend has been charged with hitting her in the head died on Friday night after spending a week on life support, officials said.
The Bronx district attorney’s office plans to seek homicide charges against the man, Jerome Thomas, a spokeswoman said Monday, adding that the details of the girl’s death are still under investigation. A lawyer for Mr. Thomas did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
On Aug. 28, the police received a 911 call from Le’Nesha Mitchell, the girl’s mother, just after 9:30 p.m. When they responded to the call, at a home in the Melrose neighborhood, officers found the girl, Imani Mitchell, barely conscious. Her face and head were bruised and swollen, according to a criminal complaint filed by Ms. Mitchell in Bronx County Criminal Court.
Ms. Mitchell told prosecutors she had left the apartment around 8:30 p.m., leaving her daughter in the care of Mr. Thomas. When she came back, about 45 minutes later, she found Imani in her bed, covered in bruises and struggling to breathe, the complaint said.
Mr. Thomas, 19, told Ms. Mitchell that while she was out, he had hit Imani twice with “a heavy hand,” and she had started to cry, according to the complaint.
Emergency medical workers rushed Imani to the hospital, her condition critical but stable.
She was admitted to the Neurological Intensive Care Unit at NewYork-Presbyterian Columbia University Medical Center, where she was placed on a ventilator. Imani’s brain had swelled so much that doctors surgically removed a piece of her skull to relieve the pressure, according to the complaint. Hospital staff determined that Imani’s injuries were “consistent with a forceful direct impact to the right side of her head” in the hours immediately before she was brought to the hospital, the complaint said.
Mr. Thomas was arrested the next day and charged with two counts of assault and one count of child endangerment. He pleaded not guilty and is being held without bail on Rikers Island. He is set to appear again in court on Friday.
Efforts to reach Ms. Mitchell on Monday were unsuccessful. The Administration for Children’s Services did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“Imani suffered severe injuries at the hands of someone her mom trusted,” read the description of an online fund-raiser that was created on Sunday to help Imani’s family with funeral expenses.
The fund-raiser’s organizer, India Hunter, wrote that the girl’s family had been “faced with the devastating decision no parent should ever have to make, letting their precious baby go.”
Taylor Robinson is a Times reporter covering the New York City metro area.
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