Boy’s Injuries, Ordeal Stun Officials : Investigation: The 10-year-old describes aunt torturing and violating him while his uncle ignored his cries for help.

A 10-year-old Orange boy told police his aunt choked him unconscious, seared his tongue with a red-hot knife and made him take off his clothing--so they wouldn’t be bloodied--before she sodomized him with a souvenir baseball bat as punishment, according to court records.

The boy’s statements are included in the court case against his aunt, Cynthia Medina, a playground supervisor at an elementary school who appeared in court Friday on four felony counts of child abuse and one count of torture. Medina’s arrest marks the first time a person in Orange County has been charged with torture since the law was put on the books in 1990.

The boy told police his aunt also ordered her husband to remain in another room where he was watching television during the Sept. 7 beating because she did not want him to interfere. The boy said he screamed “Tio, help me!” yet his uncle never responded, according to court records.

But at one point, the uncle, Edward Medina, finally told his wife the boy might die if the beating persisted, according to the boy’s account to police. The boy said his aunt responded: “I don’t give a (expletive),” court records show.

Prosecutors contend Cynthia Medina, 31, beat the boy after becoming enraged to find he was playing with her marijuana cigarettes.

Prosecutor Charles J. Middleton said the attack caused such serious internal injuries that the boy nearly died and had to be fitted with a colostomy bag.

“She was concerned he might have been playing around with her marijuana cigarettes” after she found the child’s fingerprints in the ashtray, said Middleton, head of the sexual assault and child abuse unit of the Orange County district attorney’s office.

But defense attorney Richard C. Gilbert said the charges in the case are trumped up, and that his client is being used as a guinea pig to experiment with a new law.

“She is remorseful for some of the conduct--other conduct she denies,” Gilbert said. He said his client was “lacking” in parenting skills and may have caused some injuries, but did not sodomize him.

“You walk over to Juvenile Court now, and you’ll see a hundred of these cases,” he said, declining to elaborate.

Middleton said he was shocked that Gilbert would make such a statement.

“We don’t see these kinds of cases here,” Middleton said.

The boy remains hospitalized. Medina’s own son, 9, has been placed at Orangewood Children’s Home, the county’s home for neglected and abused children.

Orange County Supervisor William G. Steiner, the former head of the foundation that raises money for Orangewood, was incensed that the defense attorney would intimate that the abuse in the case was not extraordinary.

“It’s not the first case where a child has been tortured in Orange County, and it won’t be the last,” he said. “But in all these years, it’s one of the worst that I’ve heard of. This kid almost was killed. We’ve had kids that have been burned by their parents. We’ve had children that have been beaten with ropes and electrical cords. But it’s been rare that a child has been violated sexually as has been described with this little boy.”

In court Friday, Cynthia Medina held her hand to cover her face from news cameras and spoke only to agree to have her arraignment postponed to Sept. 30.

Central Municipal Court Judge Richard W. Stanford Jr. raised Medina’s bail to $100,000 after the prosecutor said he considered her a flight risk and danger to children.

Police said Edward Medina remains under investigation. He appeared at the arraignment but refused to comment. The couple were apparently caring for the child because his parents could not.

“These are just horrific injuries,” Middleton said outside of court. “It’s just unbelievable what an adult would do to a child.”

The county’s child abuse registry received notification from a physician at 4:40 p.m. Sept. 8--the day after the boy was injured, said Lt. Timm) Browne, spokesman for the Orange Police Department.

Police said the report came five hours after the doctor examined the boy.

But Dr. Annette C. Bernhut said police were mistaken. She issued a statement Friday, through her office, denying any delay: “As a matter of policy, Annette Bernhut and this office report suspected child abuse immediately to appropriate governmental agencies. In this case, this protocol was followed.”

Bernhut later said in an interview: “Because of patient confidentiality, I cannot provide you with more specific information other than the case was reported immediately. I don’t know what happened after that. I care very much about children and in particular this issue. That is why I am a doctor.”

Authorities said that any delay would be critical in considering the boy’s injuries. After the physician’s report to the Orange County Social Services Agency, a social services worker drove to the boy’s home and met a police officer there.

“We found a battered, bruised boy desperately in need of attention,” Browne said, adding that doctors at Children’s Hospital of Orange County told police that the boy would have died if he had arrived at the hospital 30 minutes to an hour later.

Supervisor Steiner said he was horrified at reports that there may have been a five-hour delay in reporting the abuse after the aunt and uncle left the doctor’s office.

“There’s no doubt in my mind this would have been a dead child if our emergency social worker hadn’t come through. (She) was out to the house within an hour of receiving the call. I think it saved the kid’s life,” Steiner said.

He said the social worker, a six-year veteran handling child-abuse calls in the county, was “red-flagged” by reports of rectal bleeding.

If convicted, Cynthia Medina faces up to life in prison.

Authorities say the Medinas do not have a criminal history of child abuse. But three of the abuse charges filed this week stem from alleged abuses over the past year.

Defense attorney Gilbert questioned whether the doctor was pressured to file the abuse report. “How could it be that a medical doctor did not make these determinations during the course of an examination?” he said, adding he believes the doctor was under some pressure to do so. “It’s something we will be looking at closely.”

Initially, the aunt told authorities that she was disciplining the boy for playing with a lighter and ashtray and then lying about it, according to court records. She said she was hitting him with a hockey stick when she lost her balance, slipped and fell on top of the boy, according to court documents.

But she repeatedly denied sodomizing the youngster, according to police records.

Documents also show that Cynthia Medina told authorities that the boy did not seem to be hurt until later in the evening when he vomited. When the boy complained of pain, an appointment was made with Dr. Bernhut, the aunt told police.

At first, Edward Medina corroborated his wife’s story and said he was sleeping at the time the boy was punished, police said. The boy and his young cousin also gave similar accounts when initially questioned by police.

But at the hospital, after his aunt and uncle left, the boy told the nurse he had been assaulted, court document show.

The youngster said his aunt hit him with the baseball bat, burned his tongue with a red-hot knife and whipped him with an electrical cord, according to police reports. He said his aunt knocked him to the ground and than straddled him with her 180-pound frame, pressing the bat against his throat and choking him until he became unconscious.

The boy said his aunt demanded that he take off his clothes before she sexually assaulted him with the bat so blood wouldn’t stain his clothes, court documents state.

Details of the case sent shock waves throughout Orange County Friday. Acquaintances and neighbors of the Medinas said they were surprised by the allegations and never suspected any abuse at the home. Some residents said the boy and his cousin seemed like normal youngsters, riding bikes, playing sports and roughhousing about the neighborhood.

“It just goes to show you can’t tell by appearances,” said Kristina Chambers, 22, who lives in the same apartment complex on West Walnut Street.

“We are as shocked as anyone else,” Jim McMillen, principal of Sycamore Elementary School in Orange, where the boys go to school.

McMillen said Cynthia Medina seemed to be “a very caring person” who last year worked as a noon playground monitor at the school and added that the Medinas also attended school functions.

McMillen said the boys were quiet and well behaved and were good students. Also, he said, none of the teachers or staff reported any bruises that would have aroused suspicion of abuse. Moreover, he said, the children and the staff were sensitive to the need to recognize and report abuse.

McMillen said Cynthia Medina seemed to be attached to both boys, and talked last year about trying to obtain custody of her nephew.

Steiner said he had talked to officials at Orangewood Friday and that there were no indications that the boy’s cousin, Medina’s biological son who was taken to the shelter a week ago, was abused.

“The Orangewood staff have characterized his demeanor, his attitude as being very quiet, very glad to be there,” Steiner said.

Police who searched the Medinas home said they found items that may have been used in assaulting the youth, including scorched butter knives, stained carpeting, a small wooden bat, a bloodied T-shirt, extension cords and a hockey stick.

Times staff writers Leslie Berkman and Tracy Weber contributed to this report.

* DOCTOR’S REPORT

Physician denies she delayed reporting injuries. B11