Man Pleads Guilty to Separate Crimes Against Two Ex-Girlfriends and Baby

Feb. 24, 2022 – A 32-year-old man with a history of criminal conduct pled guilty Wednesday to three separate felonies in which two of the victims were former girlfriends and the third victim was the one-year-old son of another girlfriend, said Shelby County Dist. Atty. Gen. Amy Weirich.

Latherio Richard entered guilty pleas in Criminal Court to attempted aggravated child abuse, kidnapping, and aggravated burglary. He was sentenced to a total of 35 years on all counts.

The first incident occurred in late March of 2019 when the baby son of his then 20-year-old girlfriend was taken to an emergency room for blisters on his feet and legs. Doctors determined the child had first- and second-degree burns consistent with being immersed in hot water. Richard had been babysitting the boy on the day the burns were discovered.

In another incident, Richard and a 22-year-old girlfriend on Jan. 28, 2018, got into an argument at a hotel on Shelby Oaks Drive where he pushed her head into a wall and refused to let her leave.

The third incident occurred around 1 a.m. on April 15, 2017, when Richard went to the Hickory Ridge-area apartment of a 25-year-old former girlfriend to get his belongings 10 months after their breakup. Richard forced his way inside where he pushed and shoved the woman, causing her to fall and break her ankle.

The cases were handled by Asst. Dist. Attys. Devon Dennis and Jermal Blanchard of the District Attorney’s Special Victims Unit (SVU) which prosecutes cases that include rape, child sexual abuse, severe physical abuse of child victims, elder abuse, and vulnerable adult abuse. The SVU was created as an expansion of the multi-agency Child Protection Investigative Team or CPIT.