Baby’s Parents Face Torture Charges

The parents of a month-old Lake Forest boy were additionally charged Wednesday with torturing and sexually abusing their child since birth.

Andrew David Fusco, 20, and Megan Michelle Martinez, 19, face multiple life sentences if convicted on all eight counts.

The couple were arrested Monday, hours after they took their son to an urgent-care center and staff members there called authorities.

Sheriff’s officials said the child’s injuries included numerous fractures and human bite marks. The boy remains in critical condition in the intensive care unit at Mission Hospital and Regional Medical Center in Mission Viejo. “The child is expected to live, but he has suffered greatly,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. Renee Lewis. “We still don’t know the exact extent of the injuries.”

Lewis said the abuse appeared to have begun close to the child’s Dec. 4 birth.

“There were different acts committed during different time frames,” she said. “The baby suffered great bodily harm in each and every act.”

Fusco was originally charged with assault with a deadly weapon for allegedly beating the baby with his fists and with felony child endangerment and Martinez was charged with felony child endangerment.

Fusco and Martinez now also face two counts of torture, four counts of child abuse, one count of sexual penetration with a foreign object and one count of aggravated mayhem. The last count, the prosecutor said, involves permanently disfiguring or disabling another person. She declined to elaborate.

During a brief court appearance Wednesday, Orange County Superior Court Judge Pamela L. Iles ordered them held in Orange County Jail without bail.

Court records show that Fusco pleaded guilty in August 2003 to fighting and creating a public disturbance. He was sentenced to three years of probation and ordered to work 20 days on a Caltrans crew.