A former teacher’s sentencing for hitting a six-year-old boy with Down Syndrome with a ruler was delayed Wednesday after a judge said he wanted to see the video.
Bernadine Cousins, 54, pleaded guilty Aug. 15 to battery resulting in bodily injury to a person less than 14 years of age, a Level 5 felony.
She could face from probation to 2.5 years in prison. Her sentencing was expected Wednesday. The new hearing is 9:30 a.m. Oct. 10.
Cousins, the boy’s former teacher at Aspire Academy, stepped in on Nov. 18, 2022 to help a paraprofessional struggling with the boy.
Near the hearing’s end on Wednesday, Deputy Prosecutor Milana Petersen claimed Cousins “dragged” the child at one point to the bathroom.
Defense lawyer Andreas Kyres disputed it, saying the video showed she “walked” the boy.
Cappas asked Petersen which version was true.
That was my “interpretation,” she told Cappas.
“I want to see the video,” he said.
If she “misled me,” Cappas said, “that’s a problem.”
Cappas rebuffed her when Petersen offered to go get a video player, saying she “should have had that” already in the courtroom.
Earlier in the hearing, the boy’s grandmother and mother said he was still affected. The Post-Tribune is withholding their names to protect his privacy.
“God only knows who else she has done this to,” the grandmother said on the stand.
The boy, now 8, was largely non-verbal, his mother said, but managed to say who caused the welts and bruises she found.
Today, he still has “severe separation anxiety,” she said. Cousins was a “predator.”
Kyres said in court that Cousins surrendered her teaching license.
Alex Hawkins, a former Aspire teacher, said the boy was a “great kid.”
Cousins had been punished enough, he said. She could no longer teach and worked back at the school as a janitor for a time. The boy loved her and asked where she was after she was fired.
“I understand the situation and the gravity,” he said. “I plead for leniency. We all make mistakes.”
Gabriel Cousins, her son, asked for her to avoid prison, saying she was a “very vital and central part of my life.”
Petersen asked for 2.5 years in prison, saying the boy’s mother was “horrified” and Cousins was in a position of trust as his former teacher.
He continued to have nightmares, she said. He went to another school and was “scared of teachers.”
Kyres said Cousins was “extremely remorseful.”
In that period, she had lost her husband, then father and turned to alcohol to help, he said. It didn’t excuse, but explained her “mental state” and “clouded judgment.”
“She made a terrible decision that day,” he said.
Police interviewed the mother on Nov. 29, 2022. She told police that she saw “several red welts” on her 6-year-old son’s upper left thigh and buttocks, according to the affidavit.
The child told her Cousins, his teacher, hit him with a “brown stick,” making gestures like he was hitting something.
Katia Pharms, his paraprofessional, told police the boy needs “constant supervision.” Her job was to stay with the boy and “keep him focused” in class, or take him when he needed a break or “redirection.” She walks with him to different classes and to the nurse’s office for bathroom breaks.
He was a “handful,” but a “very sweet, loving boy,” she told police.
School staff told police the boy started acting up after a 1 p.m. school assembly that day. At the nurse’s office around 2 p.m., he “refused to listen” and ran around the office.
After he went into the nurse’s bathroom, the child refused to exit. Pharms said she went to Cousins’ room for help, watching the Kindergarten class while Cousins went to the nurse.
Security footage showed Cousins tucked a ruler inside her sleeve around 2:27 p.m., the affidavit alleges.
Cousins brought him back to her class. Then the child goes into the bathroom with her.
Six minutes later, they exit, with the boy appearing “very reserved” and another staffer sitting him back at a desk. Cousins put the ruler back on her desk at 2:37 p.m.
The charter school is located at 4900 W. 15th Ave. in Gary.
