This story by Jordan Cuddemi was published by the Valley News on March 13.
WHITE RIVER JUNCTION — A 22-year-old mother who was recently released from the prison system in New Hampshire after serving two years in connection with a murder-for-hire plot in Claremont in November 2016 has been charged with child cruelty in Vermont.
Monique Earle, now of Lebanon, allegedly failed to seek medical care in May 2016 for her 3-week-old infant, who had a broken collarbone and fractured knees, according to a newly filed affidavit in Windsor Superior Court.
Just how the infant sustained the injuries couldn’t be determined conclusively, but Earle told an investigator that she and her boyfriend, Ryan Ramos, may have caused the trauma when they got into an argument “and had a tug of war over (the infant’s) small body,” Hartford police officer Kristinnah Adams wrote in the affidavit.
Earle pleaded not guilty on Wednesday to the misdemeanor cruelty to a child charge, which the Windsor County State’s Attorney’s Office filed on March 7.
Judge Michael Kainen released her on conditions, including that she not have contact with minors, with the exception of supervised visitation with her brother.
The Division for Children, Youth and Families currently has custody of the infant and has since the doctors discovered the injuries, the affidavit states.
The case unfolded on May 5, 2016, when Earle and Ramos brought the baby to Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center after he hadn’t been using his left arm. Doctors determined the baby had “nonaccidental” breaks to his collarbone and fractures to the “shin bones just below his knees,” the affidavit states.
An investigation ensued, and Earle first told police she believed a woman with whom she and Ramos were staying caused the baby’s injuries. The woman denied harming the child.
Earle told investigators the only incident where she had ever applied force to the baby’s body was on April 30, 2016, when she and Ramos were fighting and she tried to grab onto the baby, who was on Ramos’ chest at the time, and Ramos wouldn’t let go.
“She advised that she grabbed harder to try and take him,” according to the affidavit. She ultimately took the baby into her arms and put him in a stroller and left. She told police the infant didn’t react as if he was in pain at that time.
Regardless of how the injuries occurred, the basis for the charge is that Earle allegedly didn’t get the infant medical care for his injuries for several days after the trauma occurred, Windsor County State’s Attorney David Cahill said on Wednesday.
The charge is only a misdemeanor because of the inability to prove just who caused the injuries, he said.
It wasn’t immediately clear if Ramos would be charged.
Earle is represented by attorney Jordana Levine.
Earle was recently released from New Hampshire Department of Corrections custody following convictions in June 2017 in a case where she attempted to hire a hit man to murder another woman in November 2016.
Earle, who was staying in a Sullivan County shelter at the time, gave an undercover officer $500 and a designer handbag in exchange for having Ramos’ new girlfriend at the time kidnapped, raped, tortured and killed.
Earle served two years and most recently was at Shea Farm Transitional Housing Unit in Concord; she remains on parole in New Hampshire.
Read the story on VTDigger here: Police: NH mom says infant may have been injured in ‘tug of war’.