A Wisconsin woman who admitted she broke a 9-month old baby’s leg at a Woodbury day care center was sentenced to serve 45 days in jail in a plea agreement Monday afternoon.
Chantelle Michelle Cheri Vevang, 36, of Roberts, was charged in August 2024 with one felony count of malicious punishment of a child with substantial bodily harm after authorities said she broke the child’s leg at day care and lied about it.
In December, Vevang entered a guilty plea in Washington County court to a misdemeanor charge regarding “any person who by act, word, or omission encourages, causes, or contributes to a child’s need for protection or services.”
During the sentencing on Monday, the baby’s mother, Sarah Oxley, gave a victim impact statement saying that the harm done to her family and baby was more than just physical.
Away on work trip
Stepping Stones Early Learning Center in Woodbury was a place they trusted to keep their baby safe, Oxley said. On the day of the injury, she and her husband were out of the country for work, leaving their baby for the first time.
“We were already struggling with the distance, but we reassured ourselves she was safe with her grandparents, and safe at Stepping Stones day care.”
That day, they got a call saying their baby had fallen from a toy and was favoring her leg.
“But something in my heart just sank,” Oxley said. The next day they were told that the injury was not better and that “someone had heard a pop in her leg when doing a diaper change.”
They immediately made plans to return home.
“While we were standing in an airport trying desperately to get home, we got the call that shattered us,” she said. “Our 9-month-old daughter had a severely fractured femur. She needed emergency surgery,” she said.
The baby was put in a cast that went from her ankle to her chest.
“For five weeks, our active curious baby couldn’t move,” Oxley said. “She couldn’t crawl, she couldn’t pull herself up. She couldn’t sleep the way she was used to. She cried through the night in pain and frustration, and we felt completely helpless.”
They learned how to change diapers on a baby with a full-body cast, they gave her sponge baths on kitchen counters, had to buy special clothes and special car seats, she said.
“We watched our baby struggle to do simple things that she was just learning to do. But the physical injury is only part of this. We struggle every single day with trust. Every time her day care now calls, my heart drops into my stomach, and I relive that moment over and over again. Emma is still fearful of medical appointments. She clings to us and cries as if she believes she’s about to be hurt again.”
Oxley asked the judge to consider when handing down her sentence “not just the broken bone, but also the fear, the trauma, the sleepless nights, the loss of trust and the ongoing uncertainty that’s caused our family.”
Shame and anxiety
Christa Groshek, Vevang’s attorney, said upon meeting her client, she quickly realized Vevang was “very childlike herself.”
Over the past two years, Vevang seemed to have trouble understanding basic information about the legal process and the world around her. Groshek said her client lives with her parents and has been so overwhelmed with shame and anxiety that “for a year… she could not leave her house.”
She “continues to struggle with understanding the world around her” and has Turner’s Syndrome, a chromosomal condition that can include intellectual impairment.
Groshek said that the day care should have realized this.
“She has strong remorse, as the county attorney pointed out,” Groshek said. “She feels horrible for what happened…She’s very, very sorry for the harm the baby’s sustained.”
Groshek asked that in light of Vevang’s remorse, her intellectual struggles and her anxiety that the judge allow electronic monitoring instead of jail.
“I think that would be a very, very difficult thing for her, and I think it would set her back and I would worry strongly about her mental health,” Groshek said.
“I’m sorry for hurting and what happened to the child,” Vevang said. “I’m really sorry. And I love children. I don’t even know what happened. I am sorry. I’m greatly sorry. That’s all I have to say.”
Jail time
Prosecutor Tom Frenette said that although Vevang did express remorse, he asked for the judge to follow recommendations and sentence her to 45 days in jail.
Washington County Judge Siv Mjanger sentenced her to 364 days in jail with 319 of the days stayed so jail time would equal 45 days.
Mjanger said the sentence could be served in various ways including electronic monitoring or work service.
The criminal complaint gave the following details:
On April 11, 2024, Vevang was working in one of the infant rooms at Stepping Stones Early Learning Center in Woodbury caring for a 9-month-old baby girl when the injury occurred, authorities said.
Vevang initially said the baby awoke from her nap about 3 p.m. and “was fussy because she needed a diaper change.” Vevang said during the diaper change on the changing table “she might have applied a little too much pressure” in pushing the infant’s right leg back because she heard a “crack or pop sound.”
Vevang told authorities the baby cried in pain and screamed louder.
Saying she was “scared,” she finished the diaper change and put the baby on the floor before going to another infant room and telling another staff member that the baby had fallen after trying to pull herself up to stand.
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A medical team at Children’s Hospital said the injury was a “severe totally displaced femur fracture and that the injury could not have occurred from a routine diaper being changed, or from a routine fall,” according to the complaint. The medical team also found three small bruises not consistent with a fall or routine care.
A state Department of Human Services investigator said that a femoral fracture in a 9-month-old child was “unusual” and would take “excessive force.”
Along with the jail sentence and a $300 fine, Vevang was put on probation for 10 years with a series of restrictions including cognitive skills programming, a mental health assessment and being prohibited from working at a day care with children under five.
