Maddelyne Douglass pleaded not guilty to second degree assault. Police say along with her boyfriend of only a few weeks, Marquis Hucks, Douglass beat her seven-year-old daughter with a belt buckle. It left the girl with cuts and bruises all over her body.

Kathy Douglass, Maddelyne's mother, lives with her and Maddelyne's three young children. She was in court Thursday morning for the arraignment.

"My daughter did not beat her that day. Her boyfriend beat her," Kathy said.

It all started when police were called a house on Merrimac Street over the weekend for a domestic incident between Maddelyne and her mother. But investigators say what really troubled the responding officers were the children they saw there: the seven-year-old girl and her five-year-old brother.

"They noticed the children looked very frightened," said Rochester Police investigator Terry Dearcop. "They spoke to the children and found out the children were being beaten."

Dearcop says the children were taken to the hospital for treatment and the Bivona Child Advocacy Center. That's when police discovered the abuse had been happening for a while and escalating.

Hucks was charged with two counts of assault. Police say he also beat the seven-year-old girl with a belt and slammed her head into a car door. He's also accused of repeatedly slamming her five-year-old brother's head into kitchen cabinets.

"I saw whip marks on the children's backs and cuts covering the seven-year-old daughter from her shoulders all the way down to mid-thigh," explained Dearcop. "The young boy was complaining of headaches and said he had fire running around his brain."

Hucks is a Level Three sex offender, convicted in 1993 of first degree sodomy. He spent 16 years in prison. Maddelyne's family said they never knew that.

"I'm terribly in shock. He didn't seem to be that person," said Kathy.

"I was trying to tell Maddelyne you don't know him like that," said Patricia Douglass, Maddelyne's sister who was also in City Court. Patricia said her sister suffers from psychiatric problems. "She can't see certain things like you and I can."

All three of Maddelyne's children, including a one-year-old, are now in foster care.
Police say they're getting the care they need.

"The children are being well taken care of. We won't leave their side as far as counseling and they'll have a lot of medical care and psychological care," said Dearcop.

Both Hucks and Maddelyne Douglass pleaded not guilty.

The judge set bail for Douglass at $10,000 cash. Both are due back in court for preliminary hearings.