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Shocking child abuse allegations against Gwinnett stepdad

A Gwinnett County man, facing a 20-count indictment, is accused of abusing his teenage stepdaughter.

Rimmon Lewis is accused of physically and emotionally abusing the 13-year-old girl for years until a school counselor notified the Department of Family and Children Services.

“He would kick her, hit her in her vaginal area, beat her repeatedly with belts (and) and table leg, (and) would deprive her of food and sleep,” says Gwinnett Assistant District Attorney Tracie Cason.

She tells WSB’s Sandra Parrish Lewis would make the girl stand barefoot on cans of vegetables and write “standards” 1,000 times which were sentences like, “I will respect my father.”

She would be locked in the laundry room for lengthy periods of time causing the girl to urinate on herself. Cason says she was then sent to school in the soiled clothes.

The indictment also details physical abuse including scars on her back from a leather belt and numbness in her feet from being hit repeatedly with a belt and a table leg.

“There were times that she was only allowed to eat cat food. There were times she wasn’t allowed to eat at all until the defendant decided that she was allowed to eat,” says Cason.

Lewis was initially released on bond after a charge of abuse in April. However, Cason says after her office began interviewing the victim, the other allegations came to light and a total of 20 counts of cruelty to children and aggravated assault were brought to the Gwinnett grand jury.

A charge of aggravated stalking was added after Cason tried to apologize to the victim through her mother in what is considered an effort to intimidate or harass the teen.

Cason says Lewis was charged with cruelty to children in Cobb County in 2014 involving the same victim and was sentenced to 10 years on probation. The family then moved to Gwinnett County where Cason says the abuse continued.

Lewis’ probation in the Cobb County case was revoked in light of the charges in Gwinnett.

The teen’s mother and Lewis’ wife, Angela Strothers, is also facing charges for allowing the abuse the happen.

The couple had four younger children but there are no allegations of abuse against them.

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