A Mountain Home woman entered a guilty plea last Monday to a charge filed against her stemming from the whipping of a five-year-old child with a belt.
Baxter County Circuit Court Judge John Putman sentenced 30-year-old Christine Potts to three years probation on a charge of domestic battery.
The child abuse case involving Potts was filed in early June last year.
Potts told investigators she had lost control and struck the youngster with the belt, causing severe and extensive bruising along the child’s back, legs and arms.
In a late May 2022 interview, Potts said the children in her home did not listen to her and she found herself unable to control them.
When investigators offered to show her photos of the child’s injuries, Potts was reported to have said she did not want to see them, but knew, “they were bad.”
A preschool staff member reported the incident to the Arkansas Department of Human Services after seeing the injuries to the child.
According to the probable cause affidavit, the incident last year was not the first case where injuries to children in Potts’ care have been reported to DHS.
The affidavit says “multiple similar reports” involving one of more of Potts’s children have been submitted to DHS.
Potts had been involved in an active court case with DHS concerning the children. Electronic court records show the support case was dismissed Monday.
DRUG CASE STILL OPEN
Potts still has a criminal case open stemming from an arrest January 23. She was taken into custody along with a male companion when officers went to an address along Timberlane Road to conduct a home visit.
A search of the bedroom occupied by Potts and 39-year-old Jonathan David Thurman turned up a substance suspected of being methamphetamine, along with small plastic bags that are used to package and sell the drug and a set of digital scales.
Thurman has been declared a fugitive. Failure to appear warrants were issued in his two drug cases – one in June and another in July.
Both Potts and Thurman are charged with possession of methamphetamine and paraphernalia used to ingest the drug.
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