Hopkins daycare operator pleads guilty to assaulting a 4-month-old child in 2022

A Hopkins home daycare operator has pleaded guilty to assaulting a 4-month-old boy in 2022.

Megan Appert, 41, was charged back in 2022 with first-degree assault causing great bodily harm and third-degree assault with a victim under the age of four years old, with the third-degree assault charge later amended to third-degree assault with substantial bodily harm.

Now, four years after she was charged, Appert has pled guilty to the third-degree assault charge.

A sentencing date has been scheduled for Sept. 11 at 1:30 p.m.

As previously reported, Appert was charged following an investigation stemming from a 4-month-old boy who was in her care displaying concerning signs. Appert ran an in-home daycare.

RELATED: Hastings day care operator charged with assaulting 4-month-old child

Court documents state that on Jan. 12, 2022, Appert texted the child’s mother around noon, saying her boy was fussy and inconsolable and asking if something was wrong with the child’s neck. After more messaging, the boy’s mother left work early and found the child already in his car seat, crying.

After returning home, the boy’s mother said he went to sleep, but threw up after waking, prompting a trip to the hospital, the complaint said.

When speaking to police on Jan. 14, Appert said she thought the boy’s neck was stiff after he was slept for 45 minutes in the morning and had an abnormal crying sound, but denied knowing how the child was injured.

A week later, Appert said she “wiggled” the boy out of a chair before his nap and reenacted how she lifted and shook the chair for law enforcement, the complaint states.

After her reenactment, the complaint states Appert started crying, saying, “I didn’t do this, did I?” and then telling her husband, “I might have done it.”

A physician said the child’s injuries were far beyond what’s appropriate in routine handling of a child and said Appert’s explanation didn’t fully explain the child’s injuries, noting that the child also had retinal hemorrhages that come from shearing forces, usually from abusive head trauma.

Cellphone data also showed that Appert searched online for sleep training a child on Jan. 12, then for “shaken baby syndrome” and “dontshake.org” on Jan. 14 and Jan. 15.

Those same court documents stated the boy had suffered multiple seizures as a result of his injuries, which require medication to control.

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