An anger management counselor and her live-in adult son have been charged with abusing the woman’s three foster children.

Ogilvia Pineda, 46, and Kyle Edgar Macias, 23, were arraigned Monday in Jefferson County Circuit Court on felony child abuse charges and are currently being housed in the Jefferson County Jail.

Pineda’s attorney declined to comment, and Macias’ attorney could not be reached.

According to court documents filed this week, the case includes testimony from nurses, police and child welfare workers, as well as the foster children themselves. The case so far has relied heavily on the testimony of the oldest foster child, a 7-year-old boy.

Portions of his account are supported by his younger sisters, who are 4 and 3.

The children said Macias would force them to retrieve food from the trash and eat it, and that Macias punched the boy regularly in his stomach, sometimes causing him to vomit. Macias is said to have shoved socks in their mouths, causing their throats to bleed.

Macias is said to have done these things to get the children to finish their chores, eat their food, or be quiet. The boy said Macias warned the children against telling “the grandmas” or their state Department of Human Services case worker about the alleged abuse.

Pineda is accused of telling the children their relatives didn’t love them. She’s accused of pulling their hair and ears and striking the boy in the head with a Mason jar, causing a gash that required stitches, according to the court documents.

Pineda is a counselor at Crook County Mental Health, where she focuses on substance abuse and anger management, according to a woman who answered the phone Tuesday. The woman confirmed Pineda was still employed there but declined to comment further.

The investigation into Pineda and Macias began May 26, when Pineda brought the foster son to St. Charles Madras with a “large” cut on his head, according to a search warrant affidavit written by Jefferson County Sheriff’s Detective Jason Pollock.

A nurse noticed “several” bruises in various stages of healing on the boy’s chest and back and notified emergency dispatch.

The boy told sheriff’s Cpl. Jason Evan he was pulling weeds when he fell face-first into a woodpile. The boy said he couldn’t remember what caused him to fall.

The boy also told Evan the other bruises came from playing baseball — he was a catcher and had been caught a few times by the pitching machine. He’d also taken a few balls to the back while running the bases. Some of the bruises he said he wasn’t sure about, according to a court document written by Evan.

Pineda told the corporal the boy had fallen into a woodpile when she wasn’t looking. Evan wrote in a probable cause affidavit the child’s injuries did not seem consistent with a normal active childhood.

On July 9, state child welfare officials removed the children from Pineda’s home, concerned about abuse, according to court documents. They were placed with their maternal grandmother.

The children were interviewed later in July by investigators at the KIDS Center in Bend, a facility that handles suspected abuse cases from around Central and Eastern Oregon.

That same day, police interviewed Pineda at her home. They had photos of her foster son’s injuries and asked for an explanation. Pineda told Pollock the boy was the catcher on his baseball team and would “always get hit with the ball,” Pollock wrote.

Pineda gave other explanations for other injuries on the boy, and injuries on his sisters.

Detectives then interviewed the boy’s baseball coaches, who confirmed the team did use a pitching machine. But they said the boy didn’t always play catcher.

One coach said Pineda seemed to have a “great relationship” with her three foster children and said he’d never seen her discipline them.

At the KIDS Center the boy disclosed “many things about being abused,” Pollock wrote in the court document.

At about midday Saturday, police served a search warrant at Pineda’s home. Macias was arrested.

Inside the home, police discovered five socks appearing to have blood spots on them, a broken Mason jar and slivers of glass recovered from the refrigerator and the bottom drawer of a stove.

Pineda stands accused of five criminal counts, including three felonies. Macias is suspected of seven felonies. Both are facing the charge of second-degree assault, a Measure 11 crime in Oregon punishable by an automatic prison sentence.

A judge set security at $100,000, meaning they have to pay 10 percent of that to be released.

Their cases are scheduled to go before a grand jury this week.

— Reporter: 541-383-0325, gandrews@bendbulletin.com