Foster parents blame 3-year-old Kyle Smith for his death

Lamar Martin (second from left) and Nymeen Cheatham (third from left) at their arraignment hearing on Tuesday.

The heartless foster parents charged in the slaying of 3-year-old Kyle Smith told cops it was all the little boy's fault - and that they thought he was faking it.

Nymeen Cheatham and boyfriend Lamar Martin waited until it was too late before calling 911, prosecutors said at their arraignment Tuesday.

"That child had been dead for at least five hours before the 911 call," Assistant District Attorney Catherine Dagonese told a judge.

"Not a part of his body spared ... this child was beaten to a pulp," she said.

Bruises covered everything from the bridge of his nose to the bottom of his toes, the top of his ankles, legs, arms, hands, back, buttocks, shoulders, everywhere, sources said.

Court documents filed at the arraignment reveal how savage the couple's alleged treatment of the boy was - and their bizarre reasoning for why they did it.

"I didn't know if he was playing a trick, because he does that a lot," Cheatham, 31, told cops. "He put on more of a performance. ... I popped Kyle open hand because he was acting out."

"I didn't do anything wrong," Cheatham insisted.

Then she blamed the tiny victim: "Kyle is a troubled kid, he is difficult to handle and is always hurting himself, jumping from bed to bed and throwing himself on the ground."

Cheatham and Martin, 23, pleaded not guilty to manslaughter charges in the June 6 beating death in their Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, apartment.


Cheatham, who had her own four children taken away in a Texas case, was taking care of the tot after his mother left town.

The family had attended a funeral the day before Kyle died and he continued "acting out" when family and friends came over to their Patchen Ave. home afterward.

Cheatham "asked Kyle why he is putting on a show," she said. "He was very dramatic, falling out and crying."

That night, he was kicking the bars on his bed and she tried to "calm Kyle down" because Martin had to work in the morning.

"I put Kyle in a time out and had him do push-ups," she said, also admitting to hitting him with a hairbrush. "When he was doing push-ups he banged his head a few times and he kept acting out."

Martin admitted he, too, "popped" the child that morning, made him stand in the corner, march in place and ordered him to do push-ups.

"I would have to be made of stone not to have some distress when I read the nature of the injuries. Nevertheless, these defendants are presumed innocent," Justice Gustin Reichbach said in denying bail but adding that he might reconsider at a later date.

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Foster parents blame 3-year-old Kyle Smith for his death

My two cents..

There's a special place in HELL for these two!