Beau Holder, 29, was watching his son Selah Brown on Father’s Day 2011 when he placed the boy in the bath.
Wide angle view from the bench in a courtroom in the Mercer County Criminal Courthouse in Trenton in a January 2013 file photo. To purchase this and other photos, visit http://TimesofTrenton.zenfolio.com TRENTON — A Trenton man who put his 2-year-old son in a scalding hot tub of bathwater was sentenced to six years in prison today.
Beau Holder, 29, was watching his son Selah Brown on Father’s Day 2011 when he placed the boy in the bath, causing second- and third-degree burns over 65 percent of his body.
Holder’s attorney, Antonio Martinez, called the injuries that Brown received “utterly horrible,” but said his client did not mean to hurt his son.
“This was not an intentional act by any means,” Martinez said in court yesterday.
Martinez said that since the incident, Holder has wanted to reach out to his son’s mother Dedra Brown and her family, but Martinez has cautioned him not to approach them.
Dedra Brown wants Holder to have nothing to do with their son’s life going forward, Martinez said.
When Holder was given an opportunity to speak, he turned around and faced Dedra Brown, who was in court with some of her family.
“To Miss Brown, to the Brown family, to my son: I am sorry,” Holder said.
Assistant Prosecutor Michael Borgos said that he explained the reasoning for the terms of the plea deal to Dedra Brown, and though she didn’t think that six years was enough, she understood that the deal fit within the legal range for the second-degree charge of endangering the welfare of a child. As part of the deal, prosecutors dropped an aggravated assault charge.
“For Miss Brown, 1,000 years wouldn’t be enough,” Borgos said.
The child’s visit should have been supervised, but Holder was not being supervised on the day of the incident, Superior Court Judge Thomas Sumners said.
“He had some mental flaws that would affect his ability to properly care for his son,” Sumners said.
Sumners followed the terms of a plea deal Holder agreed to when he pleaded guilty in June and sentenced him to six years. Holder will receive credit for 24 days he has already spent in jail.
“There is no resolution in this case that would make anybody any better,” Sumners said. “The acts committed against (Brown) were disgusting and unconscionable.”
There is only so much that a prison sentence can do to repair the damage done, Sumners said.
“Who knows what is going to happen in the future,” Sumners said.
It would be good if Holder is able to figure out a way to make amends with his son in the future, Sumners said, but for now the judge ordered him to have no further contact with his son.
Brown will have to undergo skin graft surgery many times as he continues to grow, because his skin turned to scar tissue where he was burned and that won’t grow with his body, his mother said.
Community members raised $1,000 in a fundraiser for Brown last week and will hold another fundraiser at Bromley Park in Hamilton on Aug. 31.
Staff writer Alyssa Mease contributed to this report.
Contact Brendan McGrath at bmcgrath@njtimes.com or (609) 989-5731.
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