Robert Nichols, the head of a Manchester home-based ministry, on Tuesday rejected a plea offer that would have sent him to prison for 15 years for brutally assaulting a baby boy.
As the leader of the group, Nichols demanded the unquestioning obedience of his followers. That demand extended to a baby boy who Nichols claimed “rebelled” against him and became the focus of physical discipline in August 2013, according to Manchester police.
Police learned of the alleged abuse, investigated and charged Nichols, 39, with first-degree assault, risk of injury to a child and intentional cruelty to persons.
On Tuesday in Superior Court in Hartford, Nichols rejected a plea offer that would have required him to plead guilty to first-degree assault in exchange for a 15-year prison sentence to be followed by five years of special parole. Hartford Superior Court Judge Laura F. Baldini moved his case to the trial list. He remains free in lieu of $150,000 bail.
Nichols’ lawyer, Anthony Spinella of Manchester, said his client is innocent of the assault charges and denies the allegations in an arrest warrant that he ran a cult-like Christian ministry.
Police were alerted in October 2013 after a pediatrician examined the 1-year-old boy and found life-threatening head injuries. Evaluations by the Suspected Child Abuse and Neglect (SCAN) division at Connecticut Children’s Medical Center showed the baby’s enlarged head was most likely the result of abuse when he was 9-12 months old, Manchester Det. Claire Hearn wrote in the arrest warrant affidavit.
The child’s three main caregivers in that time were his biological parents, both followers of Nichols’s Word of Faith Ministries, and Nichols himself, Hearn wrote. The victim and his parents, Hearn wrote, “were entwined with the Nichols family and the ministry” and eventually moved in with Nichols and his wife.
A witness “described the dynamic inside the home with examples that would be consistent with a layman’s understanding of a ‘cult,’ ” Hearn wrote. Nichols controlled his followers’ finances, work life and relationships, even dictating what they ate, the affidavit says.
“Robert Nichols fostered the belief that he was directly connected to God and voiced the will and word of God specifically,” the affidavit says.
The main witness to the alleged abuse of the child told police that Nichols labeled the boy “rebellious” and needed to stay with him until he could “get the rebellion out of him,” the affidavit says. From about Aug. 10 to Aug. 20, 2013, the boy’s parents did not live in the Nichols home. In that period, police say Nichols wrapped the baby tightly in a blanket, left him for long periods and threw the child on the floor “in a slapping type motion,” the affidavit says.
“Witness watched Robert Nichols ‘slam’ and drag Victim on the floor several times. Each time Victim hit his head on the ground, making a ‘thump’ on the floor,” the affidavit says.
The unnamed witness told police that Nichols slammed the baby’s head on the floor no fewer than four times, police said.
Nichols was particularly upset because the child would not pull himself up to a standing position — what Nichols called performing his “ups” — when ordered to do so, police said. Nichols spanked and hit the child repeatedly, police quote the witness as saying.
“Witness recalled Robert Nichols saying, ‘His legs are covered in bruises; guess I’ll move to his arms,’ ” the affidavit says.
To motivate the baby to do his “ups,” the witness said she watched Nichols place the boy in a kitchen sink filled with water and ice, the affidavit says.
“With this stimulation, victim would squirm and stand,” Hearn wrote. “This action seemed to justify and embolden Robert, who said things like, ‘See, if it is his own life on the line, he will obey and stand, but he refuses to do it when I ask and is being rebellious,’ ” the affidavit says.
Nichols also sprayed the baby’s face with the sink sprayer until the child could not breathe, the affidavit says.
Nichols told police that the baby hit the back of his head on a granite counter while he bathed the boy in a sink, the affidavit says. But his description, Hearn wrote, “is highly improbable to be the cause of the extensive head trauma” the child suffered.
Spinella, however, said there are many unanswered questions in the case, including why the main witness took so long to come forward.
The investigation initially was suspended because Nichols demanded to be present during any police interviews and no one would come forward, Hearn wrote. The main witness to the alleged abuse came to police in May of this year after breaking ties with Nichols, police said. She said she feared for her life at the time of the original investigation, Hearn wrote.
The woman said in a sworn statement that she had to speak up “because I could not live with myself not saying something to try to make it right,” the affidavit says.
