(La Porte County, IN) - A La Porte County woman is facing potential time in prison on allegations of physically hurting a toddler she was babysitting and engaging in sex acts with the child in the same room.

 

Miah Trute, 18, of Kingsford Heights is charged in La Porte Circuit Court with Level 5 felony battery and Level 6 felony conducting a performance harmful to minors, a Level 6 felony.

 

According to the charging information from the La Porte County Sheriff’s Office, the investigation began on August 31 in response to a child abuse complaint.

 

Investigators received a video that shows Trute while babysitting at a home near Rolling Prairie allegedly pinching a one year old boy with all four fingers on her right hand hard enough to make him cry and leave red marks on the side and under his left thigh, police said.

 

Police said the video also shows her and a man engaging in various sex acts while the toddler was in the room with them and Trute attempting to have the child engage in the activity.

 

Trute is also on video placing her buttocks on top of the child’s face several times while she was fully dressed, police said.

 

The man, Cole Horvath, 25, of Taylor, Michigan is also charged with Level 6 felony conducting a performance harmful to minors.

 

Trute, who was taken into custody on an arrest warrant on Monday, was being held in the La Porte County Jail on $755 bond while Horvath has posted bond since his arrest on Wednesday, according to court records.