JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – A Putnam County woman was arrested twice in the past six days on battery and child abuse charges, according to the Putnam County Sheriff’s Office.
Candice Stroud’s first arrest was Feb. 18 on a battery charge. She was then arrested again on Feb. 23 on child abuse charges, which according to deputies, are a charge that stems from her first arrest.
According to the arrest report, Stroud struck her husband “across his back with her fist” and pulled a “clump of [his] hair.”
The sheriff’s office said her husband was seeking an injunction against Stroud when he showed deputies videos of her abusing a child. Investigators also interviewed the child who Stroud is accusing of abusing. The child told investigators that she was hit in the face “several times with a phone.”
News4JAX spoke to an attorney, unrelated to this case, who said that someone facing child abuse charges could serve up to five years in jail and depending on an investigation by the Department of Children and Families, it could mean a child is removed from a home.
Curtis Fallgatter, a former federal prosecutor, called this situation “unusual” as in his decades of practicing he hadn’t seen a case similar to Stroud’s.
“I’ve done a lot of battery cases. Child abuse cases, if they happen the same day, they’re normally expected to be resolved with a single arrest,” Fallgatter said.
Since the reports detail allegations of child abuse, DCF has to investigate, Fallgatter said. Depending on their findings, it could impact how Stroud deals with certain children moving forward.
“If they believe she is an unfit mother or a potential danger to her children, there’s a lot of things they can do. One is, of course, they can have supervised visitation or they can take the children from the home,” Fallgatter said.
Fallgatter also said that based on DCF’s findings, parenting classes and counseling could be required as well.