Pubdate: Sun, 09 Nov 2003 Source: Sarasota Herald-Tribune (FL) Copyright: 2003 Sarasota Herald-Tribune Contact: http://www.heraldtribune.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/398 Author: Jenny Lee Allen DRUG-DOSE SUSPECT HAS RECORD OF ABUSE PORT CHARLOTTE -- The tattooed man jailed on charges he injected his girlfriend's 4-year-old with heroin has a history of inflicting domestic abuse, civil court records show. Women here have obtained three temporary restraining orders against Shawn Edward Malsky in the past five years for alleged abuse against them or their children. Documents detail the acts of a man who reportedly bruised the cheek of a girlfriend's daughter when the child refused to eat, and who tried to strangle his wife in front of her children. Court records allege that Malsky, too, was the victim of abuse as a small child. His biological mother reportedly threw him against a stove, and another time locked him and his sister in a bedroom, then left the dirty apartment. The blond-haired, blue-eyed man from Massachusetts has been arrested nearly 30 times in Florida, including once in the 1990 stabbing death of a Deep Creek woman. Though Malsky was cleared on the murder counts, he has been convicted more than 10 times on other charges, criminal records show. Malsky landed behind bars again Oct. 31 after he allegedly shot heroin into preschooler Rylee Nantell and put a lighted crack pipe in her mouth. He reportedly told Rylee that smoking crack would give her energy, a sheriff's report states. He has denied the allegations. The self-employed tree surgeon faces charges of aggravated child abuse and possession of cocaine, marijuana and drug paraphernalia. He is being held without bail at the county jail. This week a judge granted the third temporary restraining order against Malsky in recent years. Megan Nantell, Rylee's mother, told the court that Malsky has repeatedly tried to contact her through her grandmother, court documents filed Monday showed. Malsky and Nantell had been dating and lived together in a house on Bragg Court. She said her grandmother was upset. "I don't want any contact with him," Nantell wrote in court papers about Malsky, whose twin sons she is carrying. She declined comment for this story, but said Rylee is doing well. The judge ordered Malsky to have no contact with Nantell and her two young children, including by phone or through another person. A hearing on the final injunction is scheduled Monday morning before Judge Peter Bell. The first record of domestic abuse here involving Malsky was reported five years ago by Brenda Sexton. Sexton had known Malsky for nine months and shared a Punta Gorda home with him. On Sept. 6, 1998, Malsky forced her youngest daughter to eat by squeezing the child's face, leaving her cheek bruised, a document filed by Sexton alleged. Grabbing a hammer, Malsky beat the table where the child was sitting and threw things about the room. He also threatened to beat Sexton, according to the document. "I was in fear and ran with my two girls with just the clothes on our backs," Sexton wrote. "I'm fearful of what he can or will do to me or (my) children." A judge granted a temporary restraining order against Malsky. Sexton appeared at a court hearing days later, where she voluntarily chose to dismiss the injunction. They married three months later. Then in November 2002, DeSoto County sheriff's deputies arrested Malsky after he tried to choke her in front of her children, a sheriff's report states. He was charged with domestic battery and spent two nights in the DeSoto County jail before making bail. DeSoto County sheriff's deputies found red marks on Brenda Malsky's throat, according to the report. The charge was dropped in April. In January 2003, Brenda Malsky filed another domestic violence order against Malsky. Again, a judge granted Brenda Malsky a temporary restraining order, and again, she chose at a later hearing to voluntarily dismiss the order. Malsky's criminal record is lengthy. In Charlotte County alone, there have been 21 cases against him. Those include charges he hit a woman in the face with a shortened pool cue in 1998; he pleaded no contest to battery and was sentenced to 67 days, time already served in the jail. The 1990 murder of the Deep Creek woman, Sharon Gill, remains unsolved. Investigators at the time had said Malsky bragged about the murder to several friends. After Malsky spent 27 months in jail, however, prosecutors dropped the charges because they were unable to place him at the scene of the killing. During the investigation, details about Malsky's childhood emerged. In depositions taken in 1994, Malsky's grandparents -- Ed and Viola Malsky -- told his lawyer that Malsky was abused as a toddler, court records show. Viola Malsky told the defense attorney that Malsky's biological mother would lock him and his sister in a bedroom, then leave the apartment. "She wouldn't get up in the morning and feed them, change them," Viola Malsky said in March 1994. "She wouldn't wash their clothes ... Just filthy." Said Ed Malsky: "She hit them. She threw them across the room." Another time, Viola Malsky alleged, Malsky went to the refrigerator for a slice of cake and his mother slammed him against a stove. He cut his head and required stitches. When asked if Malsky's mother drank alcohol, Viola replied: "I don't think so, but every drug dealer was welcome into her home." Records show Viola and Ed Malsky took custody of Malsky when he was 3; they adopted him when he was 5. They also adopted his sister, Nicki, who was 7 at the time. Malsky lived with the couple in Massachusetts, then later joined them in Deep Creek. There, Viola said, Malsky had come home drunk "many, many times. "Drinking has been Shawn's big problem," she stated in the deposition. Malsky is the older brother of Scott Christopher Malsky, who in May was convicted of raping and murdering an elderly Port Charlotte widow. Scott Malsky also has been convicted of raping and trying to kill a North Port teen whose body he set afire. Shawn Malsky, who has been declared indigent, is being represented by public defender Richard Kolody. He is set for arraignment Dec. 5. - --- MAP posted-by: Perry Stripling