Man Pleads Guilty to Scalding Son in Bath

NACOGDOCHES — On the first day of his bench trial on the charge of injury to a child, Anthony Watts pleaded guilty to the first-degree felony. A bench trial occurs when a court case is tried in front of a judge rather than a jury. According to KETK and the Nacogdoches Daily Sentinel, Watts is accused of scalding his then-two-year-old son, ZaTaurean Pleasant, during a bath. There was an apparent malfunction with the heating unit at Watts’ apartment, which is why boiling water from the stove was added to the child’s bath, Nacogdoches Police Sgt. Greg Sowell has said. However, doctors believe the boiling water most likely was poured over the child’s head, according to Child Protective Services officials.

The guilty plea spurred the punishment phase of his trial to begin, but Nacogdoches County 420th District Judge Ed Klein had not made a finding of guilt at last report. “At this point, I’m withholding a finding of guilt solely due to a fact that one of the outcomes the defense is going to ask me to entertain would not be accomplished if there was a finding of guilt,” Klein said in court Tuesday.

Klein said one of outcomes the defense will seek is deferred adjudication. If the judge doesn’t make a finding of guilt, Watts has a punishment range from deferred adjudication to life in prison. With deferred adjudication, the judge does not find the defendant guilty, but instead defers the finding of guilt, leaving a conviction off the defendant’s record if the terms of probation are completed, according to Texas law. If the defendant violates the terms of probation, the defendant is then subject to the entire range of punishment for the original crime. The punishment phase continued today in Klein’s courtroom.