By Daniel Tepfer
Connecticut Post
BRIDGEPORT -- A state corrections officer, awaiting trial for the horrific hit-and-run that killed a local woman and injured her young son, was charged Wednesday with beating a young girl with belt during a sleepover.
Patricia Daniels, 46, a 16-year veteran of the state Department of Correction, was charged with two counts of risk of injury to a child and two counts of third-degree assault.
During the arraignment hearing, Daniels, dressed all in black, told Superior Court Judge Robin Pavia that she doesn’t have a lawyer and doesn’t intend to hire one.
In a low, rambling diatribe, she appeared to blame the city’s school system for her predicament.
The judge continued the case to April 8. Daniels left the Golden Hill Street courthouse without comment.
Daniels, of Palisade Avenue, refers to herself on Facebook as “The Prophetess.” She is charged in the Dec. 4 crash that killed Evelyn Agyeiand injured her 11-year-old son on Boston Avenue.
Agyei, a teacher in her native Ghana and the mother of three children, had been caring for the children of a Trumbull family. She was driving her 11-year-old son to school when a white BMW SUV rammed her older model Subaru on Boston Avenue.
A video camera on a nearby building captured the scene as the SUV rammed Agyei’s car first once, then again, driving it into a tree. Agyei, 51, died at the scene. Her son was severely injured. The BMW drove off without stopping.
Daniels is charged in that case. And in the new case, she is charged with whipping a 12-year-old girl, who is a friend of Daniels’ niece, with a belt during a sleepover at Daniels home earlier this month.
Police said Daniels struck the girl multiple times on the back with her “work belt,” and then straddled the girl’s head with her legs and continued beating her.
The victim and her mother complained to a police officer at the girl’s school the next day, and the officer notified the state Department of Children and Families. Police said a DCF social worker questioned Daniels, who admitted hitting the girl with the belt because the girl had given out Daniels’ phone number to a classmate.
Daniels is free on a total of $160,000 bond.