19-06-2025
Southwick mother admits to abusing her child, sentenced to 18 months in jail
WESTFIELD — A Southwick mother accused of physically and mentally abusing one of her two school-aged children pleaded guilty in District Court Thursday to eight abuse charges and sentenced to 18 months in jail, according to court records.
Amari E. Lopez, 29, of Point Grove Road, Southwick, was charged last September for five counts of assault and battery on a child with injury and three counts of reckless endangerment of a child after an investigation found one of her children was injured numerous times after being punched and beaten by her, according to court records.
A jury trial on the charges was scheduled for June 17, but Lopez pleaded guilty to the five assault and battery charges and sentenced to 18 months in the Western Massachusetts Regional Correctional Center. She also pleaded guilty to the three counts of reckless endangerment and placed on probation for two years after her release, according to court documents.
She was ordered not to abuse her children and to complete an anger management program, according to court documents.
The documents didn't indicate if she was ordered to stay away from her children.
She was given credit for serving 120 days in jail, which was the result of being held without bail after being found dangerous on Sept. 26. She was released in late October.
Police began investigating Lopez after administrators and employees of the school the child attended reported the child began showing up with various injuries to her face between September 2023 and May 2024, according to a statement of facts prepared by Southwick Police Detective Sgt. Thomas Krutka.
There were also eyewitnesses who reported seeing Lopez verbally abusing the child in public on several occasions, according to Krutka's statement of facts.
As Krutka began the investigation, he reviewed reports provided by the state's Department of Children and Families and learned there had been 21 of what are called 51A reports filed on behalf of the children 'regarding neglect and/or physical abuse' by Lopez between February 2018 and May 2024.
During the last school year, Krutka wrote there were seven abuse reports filed by teachers, administrators, and the school's resource officer at the child's school documenting the alleged abuse.
Krutka's report provides information about each of the reports, which started in September 2023 when a bus driver reported to a school administrator that on three occasions the child was taken back to school after there was no one at the bus stop to pick the child up, which is a district protocol.
The driver also reported hearing Lopez swear at the child, which was confirmed by a video recording of her 'swearing, berating, and even threatening' the child, Krutka reported.
In January, a school staff member said the child was wearing a shirt that exposed her shoulder area, and a red mark was visible on the child's skin. When the child was asked about the mark, she said she had a bloody nose before school, Krutka wrote.
The staff member said the child was checked by the school nurse, and the red mark was not blood, but scratches and abrasions that appeared to be two or three days old, Krutka wrote in the statement of facts.
Less than two weeks later — after the child missed two days of school and returned — she was asked what caused the absence. She told a staff member she missed school because of a black eye caused by her younger sibling kicking her, Krutka wrote.
The child also told the staff member she was told by her mother to not tell anyone what happened, he wrote.
Later in January, the child showed up at school with a bruise under her left eye and upper cheek, and after being asked what caused it, she said she had fallen into a door while running to catch the bus, Krutka wrote.
When the school nurse was examining the bruise, the child told the nurse she fell into a doorknob and that her mother didn't push her, he wrote.
At that point, school officials requested DCF investigate the child's injuries, Krutka wrote.
According to the statement of facts, on Jan. 31, the child again arrived at school with a large bruise on her arm, Krutka wrote. And in March, the child's bus driver reported she cried all the way to school and other students noticed blood on one of her hands. After arriving at school, she told a staff member she had turned into a water bottle her mother was holding and it struck her nose. A school nurse called Lopez about her child's bloody nose. She said it was because of seasonal allergies.
Eventually, the child was interviewed by a team of investigators from DCF and the Hampden County district attorney's office. The child told them Lopez would often punch her in the stomach with her fist, put liquid hand soap into her mouth, made her stand outside in the cold, and called 'bad' names when 'she did bad stuff.'
Charges were then filed against her.
Read the original article on MassLive.
