BRONX WOMAN INDICTED FOR ASSAULT OF HER TODDLER AFTER
PURPOSELY GIVING HER PRESCRIPTION DRUGS SHE DIDN’T NEED
Defendant Allegedly Gave Seizure Medicine to Daughter Who Never Had Epilepsy
Bronx District Attorney Darcel D. Clark today announced that a Bronx woman has been indicted for Assault and Reckless Endangerment for allegedly deliberately giving her 3-year-old daughter anti-seizure medication the child did not require.
District Attorney Clark said, “The defendant allegedly caused her young daughter to become ill, by giving her an overdose of prescription medication to treat epilepsy, which the child did not have.”
District Attorney Clark said Tajanhae Brown, 24, of East 163rd Street, the Bronx, was arraigned today on Attempted Assault in the first degree, second-degree Assault, first degree Reckless Endangerment, Attempted Assault in the second degree, and Endangering the Welfare of a Child before Bronx Supreme Court Justice Kim Parker. The defendant is due back in court on February 7, 2024. Electronic monitoring with supervised release conditions was continued.
According to the investigation, on or about and between May 2, 2023, and May 3, 2023, the defendant brought her then-3-year-old daughter to the Emergency Department at Montefiore Children’s Hospital and reported to medical staff that the child had not received her morning dose of anti-seizure medication prescribed to treat epilepsy. The child was admitted to the hospital and the level of anti-seizure medication in the child’s blood was found to be toxic. While in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit at Montefiore Children’s Hospital and after being informed that her daughter was toxic, the defendant allegedly gave the child additional anti-seizure medication which created the risk of exposing her daughter to serious medical complications.
According to the investigation, between her daughter’s date of birth on May 22, 2019, and May 8, 2023, the defendant endangered the child’s welfare by bringing her to 15 different medical providers on at least 190 separate occasions. The defendant allegedly falsified her daughter’s medical history and diagnosis and made factitious representations about the child’s physical and psychological signs and symptoms to staff at these various medical providers.
The case is being prosecuted by Assistant District Attorney Rachael Baughman, of the Child Abuse/Sex Crimes Bureau, with the assistance of Trial Counsel Astrid Borgstedt, under the supervision of Mimi Mairs, Chief of the Child Abuse/Sex Crimes Bureau, and the overall supervision of Adrienne Giunta, Deputy Chief of the Special Victims Division, and Joseph Muroff, Chief of the Special Victims Division.
District Attorney Clark thanked Trial Preparation Assistant Elaina Clarke and Jeffrey Moro for their assistance.
District Attorney Clark thanked NYPD Detective Julia Watson of the Bronx Child Abuse Squad for her significant work on the investigation.
An indictment is an accusatory instrument and not proof of a defendant’s guilt.
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