Aunt Charged With Torture of 10-Year-Old : Crime: Boy suffers severe injuries to rectum and has tongue burned. Prosecutor cites ‘egregious’ nature of the abuse for unprecedented charge. Woman’s husband is also investigated.

A 10-year-old boy has been tortured so badly--including having his tongue burned by a hot knife--that he nearly died, according to authorities who arrested his 31-year-old aunt and filed criminal torture charges.

“It is so egregious, it’s hard to begin to describe it or imagine it,” Lt. Timm Browne of the Orange Police Department said Thursday. “It’s truly chilling.”

The district attorney’s office Thursday filed one charge of torture and four counts of corporeal punishment against Cynthia Medina, who turned herself in to police around 8 a.m. Thursday, Browne said.

The case marks the first time torture charges have been filed in connection with a child abuse case, according to Browne.

Browne said Medina is suspected of searing the boy’s tongue with a hot knife and penetrating him anally with a souvenir baseball bat on Sept. 7. The boy, whose name wasn’t released because of his age, also suffered welts and bruises, possibly inflicted by an electrical extension cord, Browne said.

The boy’s injuries were so severe that doctors at Children’s Hospital of Orange County surgically implanted a colostomy bag on the boy’s abdomen last week, said Sgt. Dave Jensen of the Orange police. The boy was listed in stable condition at CHOC late Thursday.

“Doctors tell us that if the child hadn’t been brought to the hospital within 30 minutes of when we had, the boy very well could have passed away,” Browne said.

Police learned about the alleged abuse on Sept. 8 from a family doctor to whom Medina had taken the boy, Browne said.

Medina and her husband, Edward, were arrested that day by Orange police and were jailed for 72 hours, said Browne. Police released the couple on Tuesday because of insufficient evidence.

Police are investigating Edward Medina but have not made an arrest, Browne said.

“Apparently, this had been going for some time,” said Browne. “I don’t think this 10-year-old kid has had many happy days in his short 10 years of life.”

Cynthia Medina apparently has been the boy’s guardian since infancy, police said. The Medinas’ biological son, who is 9, was placed by county authorities in Orangewood Children’s Home on Sept. 8.

Last year, Medina was employed by the Orange Unified School District as a playground supervisor at Sycamore Elementary School, Browne said.

Orange police said they have no previous abuse complaints about the Medinas.

If convicted, Cynthia Medina could face life imprisonment, according to Jensen.

Times staff writer Anna Cekola contributed to this report.