The Pittston Township police have arrested a 50-year-old man who allegedly abused, neglected, and assaulted his care-dependent mother for more than two years, including rubbing her private parts with a mop soaked with ammonia.
According to court records obtained by local media, the son, identified as Michael Patrick Boyle of East Railroad Street, Pittston Township, Philadelphia, repeatedly injured his 73-year-old mother by punching her, used a mop dipped in ammonia laced dirty water to bathe her, and fed her stale bread and water.
Police said the alleged abuse and neglect occurred repeatedly between May 2017 and Oct. 2019, until the woman summoned help.
According to the criminal complaint, police officers responded to a 911 call from the woman on Oct. 23, 2019, when she finally reported about the two-year-long abuse.
The elderly woman is non-ambulatory, requiring a wheelchair or rolling walker to move around and needing assistance in her various daily chores.
The complaint states that Boyle purposefully failed to provide his mother the care that she needed.
The son fed his mother in one 13-day period with only stale bread and water, according to police.
"I know what you’re having, you’re having water and whatever else is there, which is nothing," the police complaint quotes Boyle as saying.
The mother said that one day in May 2017, Boyle pulled back the shower curtain on her and tried to push her off the shower seat, leading to a scuffle in which the elderly woman suffered injuries to her right arm, police said.
On another occasion, Boyle allegedly began roughly scrubbing his mother’s private parts with a mop soaked with ammonia and Fabuloso cleaner, police said.
"The victim stated it felt like a Brillo pad and she was screaming and hurting and telling Boyle this isn’t right," police Chief Lena Angelella stated in the complaint cited by the Citizens Voice.
Police said the night before the woman reported the abuse, she claimed she fell asleep on a potty chair and was awakened by her son, screaming at her.
When the mother asked her son for help to get off the toilet chair, he allegedly beat her with a remote control and then grabbed her hair to pull her off the seat.
Responding officers found the elderly woman covered with bruises from her head to her feet.
Boyle was arraigned Thursday, Sept. 23, in Luzerne County Central Court on charges of simple assault, indecent exposure, criminal conspiracy to commit stalking, criminal conspiracy to commit neglect of care of a dependent person, and endangering the welfare of a dependent person.
He was booked into the county correctional facility for lack of $50,000 bail set by District Judge Daniel O’Donnell.
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