Norcross Man Guilty Of Battery, Child Cruelty

NORCROSS, GA — A Norcross man has been found guilty of battery and cruelty to children after attacking the father of a two young girls in their presence.

Keith Joshua Mejia, 23, was convicted in Gwinnett County Superior Court on Friday on one count of battery and one count of third-degree cruelty to children. His sentencing is scheduled for Tuesday.

On August 16 of last year, a 7-year-old girl called 911 shortly after 7:30 p.m. to report someone was fighting with her father.

Norcross Police officers responded to Audubon Creek Apartments, at 1111 Ambers Dr., where they found the victim, 38-year-old Juan Garcia-Sanchez, outside bleeding from his face.

He said he had come over to visit his daughters at their mother's apartment when a man he knew as "Psycho" confronted him about an incident with police that had happened a couple of days before.

During Mejia's trial, testimony revealed that he beat Garcia-Sanchez repeatedly in the presence of this two daughters — ages 6 and 7 — because Garcia-Sanchez had cooperated with police and allowed them to search for a gun that had been used in a shooting.

Further testimony revealed that the only way the victim was able to get the defendant off of him was to bite him in the face. Mejia ran to his mother's apartment and hid underneath a bed until officers arrived and arrested him.

As officers were taking him to a patrol car, Mejia yelled to Garcia-Sanchez that he was going to kill him, witnesses said.

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