Flagler County Sheriff’s deputies arrested Charles Nazworth, 69, of Palm Coast’s W Section on a charge of child abuse Tuesday after he was accused of whipping his 7-year-old daughter with a belt and causing her to run away from home.
It was the the third time in 10 days that deputies have arrested Palm Coast fathers for allegedly attacking their children. One father was arrested after allegedly attacking his high school son over his sexual identity, another was arrested after allegedly attacking his 9-year-old for making a purchase on the boy’s iPad.
The latest arrest took place just as the Florida House was poised unanimously to approve a bill that would require the Department of Children and Families to focus more resources on improving fathers’ parental skills.
In that latest case, MN, the 7-year-old girl, appeared to be lost when a 69-year-old resident of the W-Section found her in the area of 400 Pine Lakes Parkway, shoeless, without a coat, on the chilly evening of Feb. 15. Concerned that something was wrong, the resident approached the girl and asked about her welfare. The girl told her she’d run away to get away from her father because he was “mad” at her, and she’d had no food all day. The girl could not describe where she lived.
Unsure what to do, the woman took the girl to the sheriff’s district office at 14 Palm Harbor Village Way. There, the girl told deputies that she is from Kentucky and wanted to be with her mother, who was no longer around: her father, Charles Nazworth, and her mother fight a lot, she said, explaining that she’d run away because her father was drinking, that he’d been angry with her. He had come after her, she said, as she hid behind a dresser. He found her and struck her on the thigh and butt, bruising her. She said she’d run through the mud and slept in the cold to stay away from him.
A deputy who sought to verify the girl’s injuries “observed two linear welts across MN’s left thigh,” according to Nazworth’s arrest report. “The welts were light red or pinkish in color. Additionally, early bruising was observed on the upper thigh.”
Deputies had responded to Nazworth’s house on Winchester Place before.
Three and a half years ago, Nazworth was arrested on a felony child abuse charge after assaulting his 13-year-old stepson, whom he’d dared to hit him as they were having an argument. The boy did, and Nazworth struck back, punching him twice in the face and the throat, though he was “approximately double” the boy’s size at the time, according to his arrest report then. The charge was reduced to a misdemeanor (contributing to the dependency of a child) as part of a deferred prosecution agreement, which Nazworth successfully completed, even though he’d also violated his pre-trial conditions by having contact with the child against court orders.
Nazworth’s completion of the program meant the charges were dropped. When a deputy looked up his case on Tuesday, the deputy reported that “A criminal history search was conducted for Charles Nazworth for previous battery convictions with negative results.” It’s technically correct, as far as how the court record reads, but a deferred prosecution agreement is also an implicit concession that a crime was committed. It is offered to first-time offenders to avoid a lasting blemish on their record. It does not mean that no legally punishable harm was done another human being.
On Tuesday, deputies found Nazworth at his home and he went to the district office to claim the girl. He told deputies that the girl has “issues,” and that her mother had abandoned her. He lived alone with the girl at the house, and was struggling to raise her and homeschool her. He accused the girl of tearing up the home. He “admitted that today he had ‘whipped’ MN. [Nazworth] detailed that he had spanked [the girl] on the ‘butt’ with a ‘belt.’ [He] stated that when he was being raised, his parents would discipline him with a belt as well.”
The self-justification echoed almost the exact words of a 29-year-old man on trial in Flagler last October for brutalizing his toddler son, including using a belt to whip him, and fracturing his skull. The man’s mother had also testified that she used to whip the defendant with a belt. A jury found the man guilty of aggravated child abuse and he was sentenced to 20 years in prison. Nazworth faces only a third-degree felony charge with a maximum prison term of five years, itself unlikely considering Nazworth’s relatively clean record, the previous child abuse arrest aside.
Corporal punishment, illegal in many countries even by parents against their own children, is legal in Florida, including in schools, as long as the violence inflicted on a child could not “reasonably be expected to result in physical or mental injury to a child,” and as long as it is not malicious. Malice may be established “by circumstances from which one could conclude that a reasonable parent would not have engaged in the damaging acts toward the child for any valid reason and that the primary purpose of the acts was to cause the victim unjustifiable pain or injury.”
Florida law remains notably vague and contradictory with regards to what constitutes any infliction of “justifiable” pain or injury on a child. The law makes no distinction in the ages of children as they are abused.
Nazworth was booked at the Flagler County jail on the felony charge and a first-degree misdemeanor charge of battery, and ordered to have no contact with the child pending the resolution of the court case. His bond was set at $11,000. He remained at the jail today.
“It should be noted that while being transported in my patrol car,” a deputy reported, Nazworth “made a spontaneous utterance stating that he was not a ‘bad person’ but he had ‘went too far today’ disciplining MN, and he wished that he could go back and stop himself from doing so.” His Facebook page is dominated by loving and admiring pictures of his daughter.
The Department of Children and Families responded to the district office to coordinate care and other arrangements for MN.
Abuse Hotline: Report Abuse Online
The Florida Abuse Hotline accepts reports 24 hours a day and 7 days a week of known or suspected child abuse, neglect, or abandonment and reports of known or suspected abuse, neglect, or exploitation of a vulnerable adult. Please use the links below to report a child or adult abuse.
If you suspect or know of a child or vulnerable adult in immediate danger, call 911.
Any person who knows, or has reasonable cause to suspect, that a child is abused, abandoned, or neglected by a parent, legal custodian, caregiver, or other person responsible for the child’s welfare is a mandatory reporter. § 39.201(1)(a), Florida Statutes.
To report an allegation in Spanish or Creole, please call 1-800-962-2873, for TTY use 711 or 1-800-955-8771. This toll free number is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week with counselors waiting to assist you.
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Disgusted says
Lock up these parents and throw away the key!
ASF says
I wonder what’s going on with the mother? Obviously, the father in this case is not equipped to take on a custodial role.
Plink says
Bet they all want to ban books, support taking away resources from children who need guidance/help to talk to their parents about being LGBTQ, and they cheer on the abortion law. All in the name of freedumb. They’re all the same. Projectionists. It’s the name of their game. Do as I say but not as I do, and you can’t do anything but what I tell you to do, but don’t even think of telling me how to live – constitution, constitution, freedumb, my life, my choice. It’s all BS in that loser fascist camp.
Me Too says
Look. I’m a victim of abuse by my stepfather. I also raised 2 children as a single mother. This man admits he may have gone too far. It is hard to raise a child alone. You say, “Lock him up and throw away the key”. Do you have any idea what this child may endure in foster care? She’ll get lost in the shuffle. I say give him a chance WITH STIPULATIONS. I pray for single parents/
Resident says
Children are so very special – loose one and then you can see what being a “parent” is about. If you can’t handle them, don’t have them. Quite being a bully and love your children – nuf said!
Peaches McGee says
Why was this man fathering children at 62 years old?
Trailer Bob says
This story is difficult to understand, as when I was that age it was quite common for parents to hit their kids with a belt for being “BAD”.
But if you look at the differences between kids in the 50’s and 60’s and those of modern times…there was less murder, stealing, and other crimes.
Crazy world…
The dude says
Just another depraved Palm Coast resident harming a child. Nothing to see here.
Deborah Coffey says
Exactly. THAT is the question. Even God saw to it that women don’t have children at 62!
Flatsflyer says
Republicans will not allow anyone to follow your advice. Abortion, Birth Control for the masses are not on their agenda. For their own wives and daughters it’s a different story. Send them on a vacation to some sunny location. I think every abuser I’ve seen has been a Trump supporter. I wonder about DeathSantis
Bill C. says
You know what makes me cringe? Nestled in this story is a problem that shouldn’t be overlooked.: “The charge was reduced to a misdemeanor… as part of a deferred prosecution agreement, which Nazworth successfully completed, even though he’d also violated his pre-trial conditions by having contact with the child against court orders.” We scream when someone commits a heinous crime and we find out that they should have received stiffer sentencing for their prior crime. After participating in a program his record was basically expunged? When it comes to children this type of “plea-bargain” should not be allowed.
Concerned says
I pray for this child. Myself and my siblings were beaten with a belt as children by our father. Did any of us break the law later? No. However it was followed by decades of depression and therapy for all of us. I broke the cycle and never touched my child who grew into a wonderful and productive member of society.
Geezer says
If I had fathered a child at 62, I’d have been overwhelmed with joy.
He was of advanced age for fathering a child, but there’s nothing wrong with that.
I suspect that mother and father were very surprised.
If that were my daughter—she would be my little princess and want for nothing.
I would, in essence, live for that little person I helped create.
Shame on Charles Nazworth, a truly despicable example of human detritus.
Time to update his Facebook page with his mugshot showing off his orange jumpsuit…
JimBob says
You seriously think God has a hand in this brutal and sordid affair?
Mary Fusco says
It is a known fact that children who are beat become immune to it after a while. I was hit as a child for something as simple as rolling my eyes or talking back. What I took from that is that I would never beat one of my children. Oh, they had the slaps on their backside through clothing when it was necessary but certainly not when they were school age. I had 4 and the girls loved to slam the doors to their rooms when they were mad. Hubby once told them that if they were slammed again, he would take them off. Well, they slammed and when they came home from school, the doors were gone. Lesson learned. They were never slammed again. LOL. Same when they got their first cars. They were on our insurance and were told that if they drove recklessly and got tickets which would raise our insurance, the cars would be parked in the driveway. Amazingly, none of them received tickets. Beating a child is easy. Teaching them and then following through is hard work. I can’t imagine what a 7 YO could have done to deserve a beating leaving welts on her little body. BTW, when my children went out into the world, they already knew that there were consequences to their actions without ever having beat.
Bill says
What a tough guy. Gets in a physical fight with a 9yo boy, and has to resort to using a belt on a little 7yo girl. He needs to pick on someone his own size. And he needs his ass kicked hard. Preferably in jail.