Collier County man charged with child abuse

NAPLES, Fla. – A Collier County man was arrested and charged after neighbors say he tied his daughter to a column on his home and beat her with a belt.

Michelet Isme, 50, was arrested Sunday at his home and charged with one felony count of child abuse without great harm, according to Collier County Sheriff’s Office reports.

A neighbor took a photo of the girl and called deputies after hearing the young girl’s screams.

“The only way to describe it – it was a blood-curdling scream,” the neighbor said. “You knew it wasn’t a child playing. It wasn’t something, an accident. They were in pain.”

Deputies arrived to Isme’s Naples home and tried to calm the girl, according to police reports. Isme was seen at the home carrying a “black leather belt” and told deputies the girl had run away and “was out of control,” CCSO said.

An ambulance was called to the home where paramedics assisted the young girl. According to deputies, she was having trouble breathing, had rope burns on her wrists and “swelling and red marks where she had been struck.”

Isme told deputies the girl was fine and “faking it,” according to police reports. But neighbors said Isme abused the girl indiscriminately.

“(She was) beat repeatedly with a leather belt and it didn’t matter where the belt was landing. It was hitting her in the head, the face, the back, the chest. It didn’t matter,” a neighbor said. “She was beat so bad she just fell right to the floor. She couldn’t even stand up.”

A neighbor said he also saw the young girl’s mother kicking the girl and wonders why she, too, was not arrested. He said Isme went too far.

“It doesn’t matter what that kid did. You don’t tie her up like an animal and you don’t beat her in front of the whole world to see. That is wrong,” he said.

The child was taken from Isme’s home by the Department of Children and Families, a department spokesperson said Tuesday.