NEWS

Mom who beat crying baby sentenced

Kevin Grasha
kgrasha@enquirer.com
Peek Gaddis.

A 23-year-old woman who admitted punching her infant son multiple times, breaking several bones as well as causing two skull fractures, was sentenced Monday to five years in prison.

Peek Gaddis pleaded guilty earlier this month to a child endangering charge.

At a sentencing Monday in Hamilton County Common Pleas Court, her attorney, James Schimanski, told Judge Beth Myers that Gaddis has a history of “mental health issues,” which he said contributed to her actions.

“She feels genuine remorse for what happened,” Schimanski said.

In early June, Gaddis took the boy to a local hospital because he couldn’t move an arm.

When police interviewed her, court documents state, she said she struck him out of frustration weeks earlier “because he was crying and making it difficult for her to sleep.”

The boy, who was about two months old when Gaddis was charged in June, was removed from her custody. She has two other children who also were removed from her custody.

All three children have been placed with relatives.

In August, Gaddis was free on bond awaiting resolution of the case and living with family of the boy’s father.

When the boy was going to be placed in the home – which would have violated her bond – Schimanski said Gaddis turned herself in at the county jail, so the child could live at the home.

Schimanski, in an interview, did not elaborate on Gaddis' mental health problems. He said they began in her early teens, after her mother died.

Officials have said Hamilton County Job and Family Services had two earlier contacts with Gaddis, in 2010 and 2013. No details were released.