Chelsea man facing slew of assault charges for alleged violence against young children

A 19-year-old man from Chelsea faces a dozen charges involving alleged violence toward two young children. Prosecutors allege assault and battery, assault and battery with a dangerous weapon on a child under 14, assault and battery on a child with substantial injury, reckless endangerment of a child, and strangulation or suffocation. Court records show he pleaded not guilty and was held without bail pending a dangerousness hearing. Prosecutors allege that after assaulting a child’s mother, he burned the child’s upper back with a cigarette lighter. Prosecutors also allege that a second child had burn marks consistent with a heated fork and that a bedroom camera recorded him violently assaulting the child by lifting and forcefully throwing the child onto a bed.

"Kener Bautista-Zepeda, 19, has been charged with one count of assault and battery, two counts of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon on a child under 14, three counts of assault and battery on a child with substantial injury, four counts of reckless endangerment of a child, and two counts of strangulation or suffocation, the Suffolk County District Attorney's Office said in a statement."

"When Bautista-Zepeda assaulted the mother, her 2-year-old child began to cry. In response, he allegedly used a cigarette lighter to burn the child on his upper back, leaving a mark about the size of a nickel, prosecutors said."

"The mother said that Bautista-Zepeda regularly cared for her child. She installed a camera in the child's bedroom, and on April 3, at about 11 a.m., it recorded him "violently assaulting" the child, according to prosecutors."

"The recording allegedly shows the child walking towards Bautista-Zepeda with "arms outstretched as if to be picked up," according to Suffolk Assistant District Attorney Allyson Portney. He then allegedly lifts the child with both hands above his own head and forcefully throws the child down onto the bed"

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