Waukesha Woman Pleads Not Guilty to Injuring Infant

A Waukesha woman who is accused of injuring an infant so badly by Flight For Life pleaded not guilty to child abuse following a preliminary hearing Wednesday afternoon.

Court Commissioner Laura Lau ordered that Maria E. Rangel be bound over for trial on the child abuse charge after determining that probable cause was shown during the preliminary hearing.

Bail remains for Rangel, 28, of Waukesha, at $250,000. Rangel remains in jail, unable to post the money for the bond.

According to the criminal complaint, police were called to a house in the 300 block of Darlene Drive June 2 after it was reported there was an infant with no pulse and not breathing. The child was transported to the hospital where medical personnel discovered numerous injuries within the infant, including two skull fractures, swelling on the brain and a mid-right side tibia fracture.

Rangel initially denied causing injury to the infant, the complaint states, saying she discovered it wasn’t breathing when she went to feed it, so she called the baby’s mother who came over and began to shake him to wake him up.

Rangel then told investigators the infant’s head accidentally hit the door of the refrigerator while she was holding him and she then lost grip of the infant who fell on the floor.

She eventually admitted to squeezing and shaking the baby, the complaint states, because the infant continued to cry.