June 8, 2022 5:42am EDT
Florida stepfather found guilty after waitress uses secret note to save child abuse victim
Orlando police credited the Florida waitress with saving the boy's life
By Lawrence Richard | Fox News
A Florida man has been found guilty of child abuse one year after a waitress’ keen eye and quick thinking saved his abuse victim, resulting in his initial arrest, officials said.
Timothy Lee Wilson, 36, was found guilty of multiple child abuse charges stemming from an arrest on New Year’s Day in 2021, when his waitress, Flaviane Carvalho, suspected he may have been abusing a child in his care, WESH reported.
Wilson was found guilty Monday of false imprisonment of a child under the age of 13, three counts of aggravated child abuse with a weapon, four counts of aggravated child abuse and one count of child neglect, according to the report.
"Justice was served," Carvalho said after the verdict was announced, WESH reported. "Now he [the victim] is healthy. He's being loved. It's clear on his face and the way he's acting that he's much better now."
Flaviane Carvalho, a manager at Mrs. Potato Restaurant in Orlando, Florida, suspected an 11-year-old boy could be the victim of child abuse and used a handwritten note to ask if he needed help. (GoFundMe)The secret note
In 2021, Carvalho, a manager at Mrs. Potato Restaurant in Orlando, Florida, was waitressing a table for Wilson and his family on New Year’s Day when she noticed the man had not ordered any food for an 11-year-old boy at the table, FOX 35 of Orlando reported.
Wilson, the boy’s stepfather, reportedly told Carvalho that the child would eat at home, but that did little to assuage her conscience after she noticed cuts and bruises on the boy’s face and arms. So she acted.
"I could see he had a big scratch between his eyebrows," Carvalho later told FOX 35. "Couple of minutes later, I saw a bruise on the side of his eye. So I felt there was something really wrong."
Without alerting the boy’s parents, Carvalho — who has two children of her own — gained the boy’s attention and quickly passed him a secret note asking if he needed help. The boy nodded in the affirmative and Carvalho called the police.
Timothy Lee Wilson, 36, was found guilty Monday of multiple child abuse charges. Kristen Swann, was also charged with two counts of child neglect. (Orlando Police Department)more
https://www.foxnews.com/us/florida-waitress-child-abuse-secret-note-stepfather-guilty 
