Lexington day care worker abused 30 children, police say after arresting her again
A former worker at a popular Lexington County day care was charged again with multiple counts of child abuse after police reviewed security footage showing the alleged assaults.
Breanna Marie Audette, 23, was charged Friday with 35 counts of unlawful conduct toward a child, according to the Lexington Police Department — less than a month after she was first charged with 14 counts of unlawful conduct toward a child.
In all, Audette is charged with 49 counts of abuse to 30 different children. The youngest child is 10 months old and the oldest was 5 years old.
Audette was an employee at Harvest Daycare, a full-time day care center for infants to children 5 years old, according to the day care’s website.
“At Harvest, we believe that the Bible and Christian values are the foundation for happy and fulfilled people and families,” the day care website said. “That is certainly true when it comes to children as well. That’s why the Harvest Daycare offers not only a safe place for your children to grow, but also a Christian environment where Biblical values can be taught.
Audette was first arrested July 15 after an administrator at the day care reported the abuse. Police reviewed security camera footage from the day care, which showed Audette assaulting several children, according to a statement from police after her initial arrest. She was given a $14,000 bond.
Investigators were then given additional security footage from the day care, in which they saw Audette assault children by “grabbing them aggressively by the neck, throat or face,” according to the Friday police statement. Police decided to rearrest Audette on additional charges of abuse.
Audette’s bond was set at $70,000 during a Friday hearing, according to the statement. She was also told not to have any contact with the victims or their families. The court also prohibited her from having any unsupervised contact with children and banned her from being within 100 yards of anywhere children gather.
Police said the second arrest concludes their investigation.
Rick Hubbard, the 11th Circuit solicitor, whose office will prosecute the case, said Friday that deputy solicitor Suzanne Mayes is now working closely with law enforcement and reviewing all the complaints and all the video footage in the case.
His office is taking this case “very seriously,” Hubbard said.
Eric Bland, with Columbia law firm Bland Richter LLP, said a group of parents has notified Harvest Daycare center that they will be filing a civil lawsuit against the company.
Bland is representing a family where two of the children, ages 3 and 6, were allegedly abused by Audette. Bland said video from the day care showed Audette putting her hands around one of the children’s necks, carrying them and throwing them to the ground. He said video showed her grabbing the other by the arm and lifting them off the ground.
Bland called the abuse at the day care “horrific for all those concerned.”
“Its pretty traumatic for the parents of my clients,” Bland said. “They had to watch the videos to identify, so they’re traumatized in addition to the children.”
Bland questioned why the abuse wasn’t caught sooner if the facility employed the use of video cameras.
“My concern for this facility is that they obviously had a video camera system in place, a protocol, but they never watched the video from this system,” Bland said. “This could have been prevented a lot earlier and a lot of the kids could have not been abused.”
“When you entrust your children to these day cares, its a tremendous amount of trust your placing,” Bland added.
Reporter John Monk contributed to this report.
