A Freeport couple faces up to 25 years in prison after a Nassau County grand jury indicted them on first-degree assault charges for allegedly starving and physically abusing their three-year-old daughter over a period of several months.
Nassau County District Attorney Anne Donnelly announced the indictment of Hanchelove Decius and Evenson Francois following their arraignment on Monday, April 13. Both pleaded not guilty. They’re due back in court on April 24.
The allegations are severe. According to Donnelly, the abuse began around October 2024 and continued for months, with the child deprived of food and subjected to repeated physical violence that left injuries in various stages of healing, all of which had gone untreated.
The case came to light on June 8, 2025, when the child was scalded with a burning hot liquid while in Decius’s care. The burns were third-degree, covering the girl’s chest and lower body. She was taken to a hospital, and what staff found there went well beyond the burns.
Doctors and nurses discovered scarring lesions, lacerations, and bruises consistent with inflicted injuries across her body. She had scarring on her forehead, nose, and face. An open laceration ran along her right eyebrow and chin. She was severely malnourished and visibly emaciated. A three-year-old child, starved by the people responsible for feeding her.
The injuries told a story that preceded the June hospitalization by months. They were in various stages of healing, which means the abuse wasn’t a single incident. It was sustained. And none of it had received medical attention before hospital staff intervened.
Francois was arrested Friday, April 10, by Nassau County Police. Decius was taken into custody three days later, on April 13, the same day as the arraignment.
“Thankfully, with proper care, the young girl is quickly recovering from the horrors she allegedly endured at the hands of her parents,” Donnelly said, as Long Island Press reported.
She’s recovering. That’s the one piece of this worth holding onto.
Child abuse prosecutions in Nassau County fall under Donnelly’s office, which has made child welfare cases a stated priority since she took office. A first-degree assault conviction in New York requires proof of serious physical injury, a threshold that the documented burns, lacerations, malnourishment, and untreated wounds appear to clear without much legal difficulty. The New York Penal Law defines first-degree assault as intentionally causing serious physical injury with a deadly weapon or dangerous instrument, or under certain aggravated circumstances. Prosecutors will need to establish intent and the mechanism of harm for each count.
The medical documentation from the hospital visit will anchor the prosecution. Emergency room findings in child abuse cases carry significant evidentiary weight, particularly when injuries show distinct patterns of repeated trauma, which is exactly what the DA’s office described here. The American Academy of Pediatrics has published clinical guidelines on recognizing inflicted trauma, and the scarring patterns Donnelly described align with what those standards identify as non-accidental injury markers.
For Freeport, a village of roughly 43,000 in Nassau County’s Town of Hempstead, cases like this surface an uncomfortable reality. Child protective systems depend on neighbors, teachers, pediatricians, and family members making calls. They depend on someone noticing that a child looks wrong, and following through. The fact that this girl’s injuries required months to reach emergency care is a question the community will be sitting with long after the legal proceedings end.
Nassau County police brought both defendants in without incident. The court date, April 24, will determine the next procedural steps. Defense attorneys have not made public statements.
Donnelly’s office didn’t offer specifics about how the June 8 hospitalization was reported or which agency initiated the child protective investigation that followed. Those details may emerge at the April 24 hearing or through subsequent court filings.
The child is in care. She’s recovering. At three years old, she has time, and with proper medical and psychological support, a real chance. That’s more than she had in October 2024.