Bittner’s wife took their 3-month-old daughter to Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center last month with traumatic brain injuries and 29 rib fractures in various stages of healing, according to Warren County Prosecutor David Fornshell.
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Doctors were told the injuries were the result of an accident, but that story is not consistent with the infant’s injuries, Fornshell said.
“The defendant knew the child had been injured on Feb. 26, but sought no medical treatment despite knowing about the head injury,” Fornshell said.
Bittner was resentful the infant, his second child, was a girl and not a boy, according to the prosecutor. But he also was intolerant of a fussy infant, Fornshell told this news outlet.
“There was underlying resentment over (the sex of the child), but his temper over the fussing may have had more to do with it,” Fornshell said.
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According to court documents, Bittner made statements to Mason police about the injuries to his second daughter.
In the motion filed Thursday afternoon, defense attorney Steven Adams said, “In this case… the prosecution has not established that Jason Bittner was informed of his rights as required by Miranda, nor has there been any presentation that Jason Bittner knowingly, intelligently and voluntarily waived these rights.”
Adams argues that Bittner also did not waive his right to have an attorney present during interrogation by police.
The motion also says evidence taken from Bittner’s home on Grasemere Run should be suppressed on the basis that the search was done without a warrant and without probable cause to believe Bittner had committed a crime, according to Adams. The defense has requested a hearing to argue the motion.
Bittner told Mason police detectives the infant fell off a couch while in a “baby bouncer type seat” without a harness, according to a search warrant to seize Bittner’s cell phone. The incident occurred while he was alone in the house with his children after his wife went to work.
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“Jason Bittner left the infant on the couch unattended with a 2-year-old sibling and went to the lower level basement of the house,” police said Bittner told them. He was away from the children for 20 to 30 minutes before returning upstairs.
“Jason Bittner advised that when he arrived upstairs he observed his infant daughter face down on the wood laminate floor with the baby bouncer seat resting over her back. Jason Bittner describes his daughter as having convulsions while lying on the floor,” detectives stated in the court documents.
Bittner said he observed a dark spot under the child’s eyes when he picked her up, but did not seek medical treatment, according to the court documents.
“Jason Bittner sent a text message to his wife that the infant had scratched herself with her fingernails causing the bruising to the eye and did not tell his wife of the infant’s fall,” according to court documents.
It was not until 48 hours later, after the child was running a fever, that the mother took the baby to the hospital.
After Bittner’s arraignment last week, Adams said there are two sides to every story and his client is presumed innocent.
“The facts will come out in court at the appropriate time,” Adams said after Bittner’s arraignment, where he entered not guilty pleas to all three charges. “I just ask everyone to pray for this family. It is a very stressful ordeal, but keep an open mind because medical professionals, they can get it wrong sometimes.”
Bittner, a chiropractor, was arrested at his office in West Chester Twp. He is free on $25,000 bond and due back in court April 10 before Warren County Common Pleas Judge Timothy Tepe.
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