ORLANDO, Fla. – A jury found the mentor accused of hitting a 7-year-old boy with a belt, shaving his hair and eyebrows and making him do military-style exercises not guilty of child abuse Tuesday night.
Devery Broox, 25, of Orlando, was charged last year with child abuse after being accused of posting a video of the discipline on the Internet.
The discipline was apparently in reaction to the boy, who is now 8, misbehaving in school.
On the stand, Broox testified he had permission from the boy's great-grandmother to discipline the child, but said he never told her he was spanking the boy. He also said the great-grandmother asked him to shave the boy's head and eyebrows to treat a skin fungus.
When the boy was acting up in school, Broox said he told him the shaving was punishment, instead of telling him his great-grandmother told him to.
Broox said of the 17 or 18 "licks" the boy received, he administered about eight. He said the rest were given by a friend of Broox.
The boy told the jury Brooz was a "mentor brother" who took him to the park, skating and played tennis. He said Broox would discipline him if he "didn't act right at school" for an example, throwing crayons at other students.
In the video, Broox can be heard saying, "Let's go. Drop your pants. So when I told you to go back to school and behave yourself and you went back (and) just did what you want to and just played in class, that wasn't saying, '(Expletive) me?'"
In the video, Broox can be seen shaving the boy's head, telling him he couldn't grow his hair back until he behaved. The boy said the video made him feel "sad and disappointed, because everybody saw it."
On the day of the video, the boy said Broox made him do exercises, then spanked him, "whooped" him with a belt.
Broox told jurors that he wanted to influence others to become mentors.
"The problem is, I definitely went the wrong route about doing it," Brooks said.
The Department of Children and Families, however, said the fact that Broox was not the boy's father further proved that he was out of line.
"We were quite concerned with the content that was in there, given that the individual is not the caretaker, as far as the child does not live with that individual," DCF spokeswoman Carrie Hoeppner told Local 6 in November.
The child's grandmother told police the boy needed a "mentor," a role filled by Broox.
"I didn't give him permission to physically strike him, but I did ask him to correct him," the victim's great grandmother said. She said she didn't have a problem if he spanked the boy.
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