CLEARFIELD – A former personal care aide accused of rubbing the face of a 7-year-old boy in his own urine pleaded guilty Tuesday during sentencing court.
Jacob Lewis Lancaster, 23, of Clearfield was charged by Lawrence Township police with simple assault, endangering the welfare of children and recklessly endangering another person as a result of his actions on Dec. 17.
According to the affidavit of probable cause, Lancaster took the boy who was in his care to his own home where the boy wet himself on a couch. Lancaster then rubbed the boy’s face in his urine and put a diaper on him.
On Tuesday Lancaster pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor counts each of endangering the welfare of a child and recklessly endangering another person.
President Judge Fredric J. Ammerman commented on the case saying it was “weird.”
He ordered Lancaster to be drug tested prior to his sentencing and Lancaster’s results were negative for any controlled substances.
Ammerman then sentenced him to 30 days to one year in jail and one-year consecutive probation. He was fined $300 and ordered to complete anger management counseling.
It is a condition of his sentence that he is no longer allowed to be employed as a care giver for children.
The criminal complaint details that after the incident, Lancaster also hit the boy hard enough on the chest that he left a hand print.
The victim’s grandmother told police that Lancaster started working for the family in late March of 2017. She explained that her grandson has been diagnosed with autism and attention deficit disorder.
At the end of November of 2017, he started exhibiting concerning behaviors including increased urinary and fecal incontinence, swearing and aggressiveness, she said.
When he and Lancaster returned to the boy’s home Dec. 17, the victim was displaying abnormal behaviors, she told officers. He was “out of control” and was having a difficult time regulating himself.
Sometime after Lancaster left, the victim told his grandmother what had happened.
The next day Lancaster told three witnesses about the incident and was laughing about it.
Some of these same witnesses later told investigators that they had seen Lancaster smack the boy’s buttocks on 10 different occasions and at other times squeezing his shoulder so tight that the boy would cry.
