Lynn man convicted of beating 10-month-old infant

SALEM – A Superior Court jury convicted a Lynn father of beating his 10-week-old infant son, causing fractures to the child?s ribs and collar bone, following a jury trial.James S. Frary, 42, of 100 Willow St., Lynn, went on trial earlier this week on a charge of assault and battery on a child causing injury to his 10-month son Evan Frary.The jury comprised of five women and seven men deliberated for three and a half hours on Friday, finding Frary guilty as charged.Judge David A. Lowy, who presided over the trial, delayed sentencing until Monday morning, Oct. 17 at 9:00 a.m.In the meantime, Frary who faces up to five years in state prison, remains held at the Middleton Jail pending his sentencing.Assistant District Attorney Jessica M. Strasnick successfully presented evidence during the trial that on the night of June 15, 2010, Frary was seen by a witness in a van striking his infant son.The female eyewitness, Shauna-Leigh LeBlanc, a pre-school teacher, testified she was inside St. Stephen?s Church, located at 71 South Common St., at around 7:40 p.m., for premarital counseling with her fiancé and heard a baby crying.She went over to the first-floor window and said she saw the man in a van holding and rocking the baby at first, but then “cocked his arm back and pushed it forward and backward three times,” striking the infant in the stomach area.?The baby stopped crying. I thought the baby died and I screamed for fiancé and we called police,” she recalled.When police arrived, they spoke to the man, later identified as Frary. He insisted that he did not hit his son.Frary, who is disabled and unemployed, reported to police that the baby was crying and he was comforting him.At the time of the incident, the mother of the infant was inside the church attending an Alcohol Anonymous (AA) meeting.Strasnick in her closing summation told the jury that Frary was “angry, upset and frustrated,” because he was with his “colicky, fussy son,” preventing him from being inside with the mother of his child, who reportedly was sitting next to her boyfriend.So he pulled his arm back and “struck the child three times on that little body,” Strasnick insisted.Strasnick also presented medical testimony during the trial which confirmed that the infant had a collar bone fracture as well as several upper rib fractures. The infant also had other rib fractures and injuries identified, but were not recent.Defense lawyer John Morris maintained in his closing that Frary did not hit his son that the fractures on the infant were from prior incidents while emphasizing that Frary had only been living with the mother for two-weeks.Frary did not take the stand in his own defense during his trial.