A former gymnastics coach has plead guilty to reckless endangerment for his role in an incident that occurred at the Berlin Activities Depot last summer.
Last September, Lionel Evans, now 58, of Princess Anne, was indicted in Worcester County Circuit Court on charges of second-degree child abuse, second-degree assault and reckless endangerment, all stemming from a child abuse investigation at the Berlin Activities Depot last summer. And on Tuesday, Judge Brian Shockley sentenced Evans to 18 months, all but one day of which was suspended, for a guilty plea he had entered on the charge of reckless endangerment.
“This was one incident where Mr. Lionel went out to discipline a child and it went too far,” Thomas Maronick Jr., Evans’s attorney, told the judge this week.
Last August, Berlin police launched an investigation after the parent of a four-year-old attending the Berlin Activities Depot reported an incident that occurred at the facility’s playground on Aug. 13. The parent told officers Evans, a gymnastics coach at the Berlin Activities Depot, had grabbed his child by the back of his neck, leaving a red mark, scratches and bruising. The parent said his child was not listening and had run away from Evans on the playground.