PROVIDENCE — A 17-year-old Woonsocket boy accused of beating and raping his girlfriend’s 2-year-old daughter was charged as an adult in District Court yesterday.
Dressed in a blue Red Sox T-shirt and baggy pants, John Price was arraigned before Magistrate Joseph P. Ippolito Jr. on one charge of first-degree child molestation and one charge of second-degree child abuse. He is being represented by a public defender. Price was waived out of Family Court on Monday to be tried as an adult.
Ippolito ordered Price held without bail at the ACI pending a bail hearing Aug. 5 in District Court.
Price will be held in the Adult Correctional Institutions’ high-security unit for defendants under 18. Now that he has been charged as an adult, Price faces a possible prison sentence of 25 years to life if he is found guilty of first-degree child molestation, and 5 to 10 years on the second-degree child-abuse charge.
Price was arrested after his girlfriend left him in charge of her three-month-old son and her 2-year-old daughter at her apartment June 29. When she returned she noticed red marks and bruises on her daughter and later called the police when she did not believe Price’s explanation for her child’s injuries.
Doctors at Landmark Medical Center and Hasbro Children’s Hospital determined that the toddler had been raped. They found bite marks and bruises on her body.
The children are in the custody of their mother, according to Stephanie Terry, assistant director of the Department of Children, Youth and Family’s child protective services.
State law requires the attorney general’s office to seek a waiver of juvenile offender status when a teen is charged with a crime as serious as child molestation or rape.
Price’s name is being disclosed because he has been charged as an adult.
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