Probation given for child abuse

By Matt Pordum

Thursday, Sept. 2, 2004 | 11:05 a.m.

A 28-year-old man who had been charged with child abuse and neglect after his 2-year-old son was found to have cocaine in his system was sentenced to probation Wednesday.

Ian Held was arrested May 24 on seven outstanding traffic warrants and charges of possession of narcotics paraphernalia, child endangerment and child abuse. There were no abduction charges filed, police said.

District Judge Sally Loehrer issued a suspended sentence of one to three years to Held and ordered him to serve two years probation. Held will have to complete Drug Court, maintain full-time employment and take six months of parenting classes.

While waiting for his sentencing Held sat in court with his pregnant girlfriend Melissa Wilton, who is also the mother of the 2-year-old.

Held was brief in his opportunity to address the court.

"I'm getting help for my drug problem and I won't be in jail again." he said.

Held said that after his arrest he "signed off " his custody rights to his 2-year-old son but will continue living with Wilton.

Wilton had reported the boy missing after she got home and the boy and Held were gone and didn't come home.

Held admitted to smoking crack cocaine from May 22 through May 24. After inspecting the stroller that the boy was sleeping in, Metro Police Officer Samuel Underwood found a glass pipe, according to the arrest report.

Upon noticing red marks on the legs of the boy and a high heart rate, authorities took the child to University Medical Center for tests. After conducting a urinalysis on the child, the test came back positive for having cocaine in his system, according to the report.

Held told the officer he had smoked crack cocaine earlier in the day "but did not know where his pipe was."

Police said the circumstances surrounding the child being taken by Held did not amount to abduction. They determined that endangerment and abuse were the appropriate charges based on the findings of their investigation, according to the report.

The abuse charge, police said, stemmed from the apparent lack of available food for the child during the time he was missing and doctors at the University Medical Center, where the child was taken, finding evidence of malnutrition.

The endangerment charge, which was dropped in exchange for Held's pleading guilty to child abuse and neglect, stemmed from the fact that Held was alleged to have been wandering around downtown Las Vegas aimlessly with the boy while high on narcotics, authorities said.