Day care owner gets 20 years for abuse

ROUND ROCK, Texas (KXAN) - A Round Rock home day care provider was sentenced to 20 years in prison Friday for hurting a child in his care by putting the boy's hands in scalding water.

Scott Patrick Hudson was convicted of reckless injury to a child by a Williamson County jury, which gave him the maximum penalty for the second-degree felony.

"When someone causes harm to your child, it is inexcusable," said Rachel Epstein, the mother of 3-year-old victim Jared Epstein.

On Oct. 27, 2009, Hudson put Jared's hands in water estimated at 140 degrees to badly burn the boy. His mother says when she picked him up from the Hudson's home, Jared's skin was melting.

"His hands looked like something you would see at a wax museum."

Scott Hudson and his wife had started an in-home day care a few months before that, with as many as eight young children each day. Investigators said they did this without a license.

"We looked into these people, we checked their references and they deceived us," said Epstein whose testimony along with pictures of Jared's hands may have had the biggest impact on the jury.

"The fear, the emotions, the pain, I went though and that my son went through can never be described," said Epstein speaking shortly after the sentence was announced. "The jury realized what they did to Jared and they realized Mr. Hudson had to pay for that."

Epstein says she was told Jared had filled a sink in the bathroom of the Hudson's home with the hot water and when Scott Hudson discovered what he was doing, he plunged Jared's hands in the sink as a form of punishment. The toddler was taken to Dell Children's Medical Center with second- and third-degree burns on both of his hands and wrists and is still receiving treatment from the Shriner Burn Hospital in Galveston.

Epstein says justice was served with the maximum sentence, but will pursue civil action against the Hudson's for the personal injuries done to Jared.

"Him and his wife were put in charge of our children and other children and they need to be held liable for that."