Pago Pago, AMERICAN SAMOA — A father was arrested at the LBJ Medical Center Emergency Room (ER) on the allegation that he struck his 8-year-old daughter with a broom handle and injured her right eye.

When questioned by investigators, the father claimed he disciplined his daughter after he discovered that she was looking at adult websites on her laptop instead of during her homework.

The father made his initial appearance before District Court Judge Gwen Tauiliili-Langkilde last week.

He is charged with one count of abuse of a child and 2nd-degree assault, both class D felonies, punishable by imprisonment terms of up to five years, a fine of up to $5,000, or both.

Bail is set at $10,000.

During his initial appearance, the defendant waived his rights to a preliminary examination. His case was bound over to High Court and he’s scheduled to appear in Court this morning for arraignment.

THE CASE

On the evening of Feb. 19, 2022, a social worker at the LBJ Medical Center contacted the Tafuna Police Substation (TPS) regarding an abuse case involving an eight year-old girl who was allegedly assaulted by her father.

Several police officers were assigned to handle the matter and later interviewed parties involved, including the victim, her mother and the defendant, her father, Ronald Lee.

When questioned by police, the victim’s mother stated that she was in the bathroom when she heard her daughter crying that her father had beat her up with a stick. The victim’s mother came out and noticed injury to her daughter’s eye and immediately contacted EMS for assistance.

Investigators were unable to interview the victim at the hospital due to the pain from her eye that caused her to feel dizzy.

Lee was apprehended at the ER and was later transported to the TPS for further investigation. He was Mirandized and he said he understood and agreed to make a statement.

According to the defendant’s statement to investigators, he left the office for home and when he got home he saw his daughter on her laptop doing homework. He hugged the daughter and asked if she was doing her homework to which she replied yes. His wife was cooking dinner at the time so he went to the room to change his clothes, lay down to relax a little bit and later called out to his daughter to bring her laptop so he could check her homework.

According to the defendant, he was shocked when he got his daughter’s laptop and saw what she was doing on the laptop. He noticed adult websites that his daughter was watching on her laptop so he asked his daughter about what he saw and she replied that it was just games on her laptop.

The defendant stated he also clicked on the history of the laptop and saw other websites that his daughter was checking out instead of doing her homework. He then scolded his daughter and asked if that was the homework that she was told to do and she replied no.

The defendant then told his daughter to get the broom handle so he could beat her to teach her a lesson because she lied to him.

The defendant admitted that he struck both of his daughter’s hands and thighs twice, but when he struck her hands she learned forward and the stick hit her on the right eye. That’s when he called out to his wife to contact EMS immediately.

The defendant was transported to the prison where he was booked and confined after he was interviewed by investigators.