Child’s death prompts effort to change N.H. law

CONCORD, N.H. – A Franklin lawmaker says he wants to toughen the state’s child endangerment law.

State Rep. Robert Ouellette says he was prompted by the case of Amanda Bortner, a Rochester woman convicted last week of failing to protect her toddler from abuse that led to the girl’s death.

Kassidy Bortner died in November 2000. Amanda Bortner’s live-in boyfriend, Chad Evans, 31, of Rochester, was convicted last year of second-degree murder and multiple assault charges for killing Kassidy.

Amanda Bortner, 20, will be sentenced in January and faces a maximum of two years in jail.

But Ouellette said that’s not enough. He has filed a draft of a bill to amend the child endangerment law, making it a felony instead of a misdemeanor not to protect a child from abuse that causes serious injuries or death.

Under current state law, only those committing sex crimes against a minor face felony charges. Ouellette said cases such as Bortner’s, where parents allow severe ongoing abuse to take place, should have stiffer penalties because they act as facilitators for the abuser.

“Basically she was an accessory to the crime, especially when you take into consideration what she saw and allowed to happen,” Ouellette said.

Kassidy died due to blunt-force injuries to her head and abdomen. In the months before her death, she suffered multiple broken bones and bruises from being pushed into walls, choked, grabbed in the face and held under a running faucet.

Ouellette said he wrote the bill after receiving a letter from Rochester police Sgt. Stephen Burke.

Burke, who has been with the department for 18 years, said that while he did not investigate Kassidy’s death, news about the abuse compelled him to start a letter-writing campaign.

Burke wrote and e-mailed dozens of state representatives and senators, hoping they would propose legislation to increase penalties for those who fail to protect their children.

“After reading the accounts of what took place in the Bortner household and being a police officer, I felt a misdemeanor penalty is far from what the standard should be,” said Burke, a father of two. “It’s crucial penalties be increased to be consistent with the degree of endangerment.”

David Ruoff, the state prosecutor in Bortner’s child endangerment trial, agrees that penalties do not go far enough.

In Maine, Kassidy’s death already has resulted in strengthening child endangerment and abuse reporting laws.

Before the Bortner case, Maine required professionals such as law enforcement officials, teachers and health care providers to report abuse, but family members, friends and neighbors were not required to report.

An amendment to Maine’s child endangerment law makes it a Class C felony crime, punishable by up to five years in jail, for parents and others responsible for long-term care to fail to report abuse.