Inset: Reylan Cortes-Garnier (Palm Beach County Jail). Background: Cortes-Garnier allegedly hits a nonverbal boy with autism with a shoe at a facility in West Palm Beach, Florida (WPEC).
In a deeply troubling case from Florida, a therapist is accused of misusing items meant to aid autistic children, allegedly using them to physically assault a young nonverbal boy. The therapist reportedly struck the child with a shoe, a tennis racket, and a book.
Reylan Cortes-Garnier, 28, now faces charges of child abuse without inflicting great bodily harm. According to an arrest affidavit, this disturbing incident took place on February 20 at Maximum Achievers in West Palm Beach. Cortes-Garnier, a registered behavior technician, had been working with the boy for approximately a year.
The boy’s mother began to worry when her son returned home with unexplained bruises and marks on his body.
“The first thing I noticed was that he was trembling,” shared the boy’s mother, Diana Hernandez, in an interview with the local CBS affiliate WPEC.
Concerned, she approached the facility’s director to review footage from her son’s therapy session with Cortes-Garnier. What she witnessed on the video left her appalled.
The footage allegedly shows Cortes-Garnier committing several deliberate acts of child abuse, authorities stated. These acts included hurling a ball at the child with significant force. The therapist is also accused of removing his shoe to strike the boy, followed by repeated blows with a racket and a book.
Hernandez noticed the boy had a bite mark along with bruises to his shoulder, ribcage and lower back area. She took him to the hospital for medical evaluation and doctors determined his injuries were “consistent with physical trauma.”
Hernandez told the director of the facility that she wanted to get police involved, but she said the director was allegedly initially hesitant to do so.
“Why are you risking your whole business for this man?” she said, per WPEC. “You’re supposed to be taking care of my kids. I put my kids in your hands.”
Cops reviewed the video with the director, who told them “such conduct is strictly prohibited at her facility and is not consistent with any established policy, training protocol or individualized behavior plan.”
The director said Cortes-Garnier “profusely apologized” when she confronted him about the incident and showed him the video. He has since been fired.
Hernandez told WPEC that her son was “traumatized” but is doing better. She said the whole situation has been upsetting.
“I just want justice. I just want justice for my son,” she said. “I honestly wanted it to be a lie. I wanted it to not be true. I wanted it to be something else.”
Cortes-Garnier was arrested on Friday and has since posted a $7,500 bond. His next court date is set for March 29.
