A Farmington man was arrested after nearly biting off the lip of a 14-year-old girl in his care.
Marquez Smith, 23, was charged with a first-degree felony count of child abuse resulting in great bodily harm.
The charge was in connection to a July 13 incident at a home in the 1400 block of Meadow Lark Avenue in Farmington, where Smith was supposed to be caring for the girl and her two cousins, according to the affidavit for arrest warrant.
Farmington Police were alerted to the alleged abuse by staff in the San Juan Regional Emergency Room, after the girl was brought there at 10:13 a.m. by a neighbor, the affidavit said.
Police described the injury to the girl’s lower lip as “disfiguring,” with an extensive tear that “split apart her lip going down to her chin” and requiring plastic surgery, the affidavit said.
While investigating, police learned that Smith allegedly attacked the girl after accusing her of “trying to leave the house to go see a boy,” the affidavit said.
The girl also suffered “strangulation marks on her neck and human bite marks on her shoulder and back,” the affidavit said.
Smith, who reportedly was intoxicated at the time of the incident, was booked into the San Juan County Detention Center, and the San Juan County District Attorney’s Office filed a motion for a pretrial detention hold.
The motion said that Smith’s “mother was concerned for her safety, as well as the safety of her children and the victim enough to file a domestic violence petition.”
In the petition filed July 14, the woman said she considered Smith to be “dangerous” when intoxicated, and asked for the protection order to be “granted as soon as possible,” because she feared his being released from jail.
District Judge Sarah Weaver denied the order July 14, stating the “petition did not contain sufficient allegations to warrant the issuance of an ex parte temporary restraining order.”
A detention and preliminary hearing has been scheduled at 4 p.m. July 28 in the 11th Judicial District Judge Judge Stephen Wayne’s courtroom in Aztec.