Therapist Charged with Beating Autistic Child, 4 years old

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Therapist charged with beating autistic child, 4

Parents secretly videotaped a session with woman, authorities say

Saturday, September 04, 2004

BY BILL SWAYZE

Star-Ledger Staff

A therapist hired by a Long Hill Township couple to teach their 4-year-old

autistic son in

their home was charged with beating and sexually assaulting the boy after his

parents secretly

videotaped a session in their basement, County authorities said

yesterday.

Mischenko, a 23-year-old Middletown behavior therapist working with

the boy since

January 2003, is charged with kicking and punching the boy in the head,

shaking him by the

ears, lifting him off the floor by his hair and squeezing and pulling the

boy's genitals,

County Prosecutor Rubbinaccio said.

The parents watched the tape Wednesday night, after Mischenko went home. They

immediately

called police.

Mischenko was arrested at 4 a.m. Thursday at her home. She lives with her

parents, who were out

of town at the time.

Mischenko was charged with second-degree sexual assault, child endangerment

and third-degree

aggravated assault. She remains in the county jail in lieu of $100,000 bail

and faces a maximum

10-year prison sentence, Rubbinaccio said.

Rubbinaccio said the videotape showed more than two hours of disturbing

violence. The boy

barely talks, weaving together a couple of words at a time and using sign

language to

communicate. " She is sadistic and cruel, " he said of Mischenko.

The boy's father agreed. " It is a nightmare. I never thought that someone we

trusted and let

into our home would do something like this, " the 41-year-old father said.

" When we watched that

tape Wednesday my wife cried, saying, 'How can she do that to our baby?' I

got so disgusted. "

But the woman's father, Mischenko, said his daughter would never hurt

a child. " She is a

good person. She doesn't abuse kids. It's unfair what they are saying about

her, "

Mischenko said.

Mischenko, however, admitted to the charges, plus spraying the

victim in the face

with an unknown liquid in a hypodermic needle, according to Long Hill police

Detective Sgt.

Brown's arrest affidavit. She admitted to the abuse not only on

Wednesday, but for the

past two weeks, the affidavit states.

The boy's father and mother said that two weeks ago they noticed a rash on

their son's hands

and purple bruises on his earlobes. When the therapist showed up at the

house, the boy would

hug his mother, not wanting to go to the basement, the father said. The

parents asked Mischenko

about the rash and bruises, but didn't get an explanation, they said.

The father bought a $300 wireless video surveillance camera with a lens the

size of a pinhead.

He placed it on a bookshelf in the basement and, on Wednesday, recorded the

session. The boy's

mother was home at the time. Though the tape shows the boy screaming, he

occasionally did that,

so that didn't alarm the boy's mother, Rubbinaccio said.

Mischenko was employed by Neptune-based New Horizons in Autism, a nonprofit

agency that offers

residential, vocational, family support and behavior therapy programs. It has

contracts with

some 20 school districts, charging $65 an hour for services.

Her boss, executive director Michele Goodman, said, " I'm appalled at her. My

concern is for

that child. "

Mischenko, who did not need certification to do the job, has worked with

other autistic

children and was never accused of abusing them, Goodman said. She was being

groomed for a new

position, and was only working with the Long Hill boy twice a week for two

hours. She was fired

yesterday, Goodman said.

The boy attends the local school system, which covered the cost of therapy to

supplement his

skills until he attended school full time in May. The boy's parents then

agreed to hire

Mischenko on their own.

The boy's parents, who also have an older son, said the autistic boy was

treated and released

from a local hospital.

" Our heart was broken when we learned he was autistic, and whatever was left

was shredded when

we saw that tape, " his mother said.

Copyright 2004 NJ.com. .