Victoria A. Cheney looks back to the benches in the courtroom as attorneys discuss her bail in Lewis County Superior Court.
By Sharyn L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter
CHEHALIS – After weeks of investigating how two little boys ended up bruised and swollen, and arresting and then releasing the girlfriend of their father, authorities arrested the girlfriend’s mother.
Victoria A. Cheney, 44, of Centralia, was charged yesterday in Lewis County Superior Court with two counts of second-degree child assault.
Authorities came to believe the injuries occurred on July 22, while the children, ages 2 and 3, were staying with Cheney and her husband at their home on Little Hanaford Road, according to court papers.
Cheney’s daughter, 22-year-old Chandra M. Munsey, was arrested on July 23 and charged in the case, but prosecutors have since dismissed the charges against her after numerous interviews confirmed her alibi, according to the documents.
The boys stayed a few nights at the Cheney’s, and when their dad Casiano Baldovinos got a phone call telling him to come pick them up, he found both with bruises on their faces, the little one’s left eye almost swollen shut, according to court documents. He reported it to the sheriff’s office.
The boys were taken into protective custody and remain in foster care, the sheriff’s office said yesterday.
Charging documents allege Cheney gave varying accounts of what happened or may have happened, blaming her daughter and describing abusive behavior she said she’d witnessed.
Her husband Don Cheney said he saw the injuries when he returned home from work on July 22.
Cheney is charged also with three counts of witness tampering, as she told detectives she wasn’t even home the day the boys were assaulted, she’d gone to visit friends in Bucoda early that morning and came home to discover the injuries. The friends told detectives Cheney arrived around 1 p.m. and she allegedly asked them to tell detectives she’d shown up much earlier, according to the documents.
She also allegedly asked one of them to write a letter saying he’d witnessed Munsey assault the children.
Detectives spoke to the 3-year-old twice, and when he was asked who hurt him and his brother, both times he said “Grandma Vicky,” according to the documents.
Cheney is also charged with malicious prosecution, for attempting to incriminate her daughter.
“Based upon the investigation, it appears the only person who was with the victims during the time they were assaulted was Mrs. Cheney,” Lewis County Senior Deputy Prosecutor Will Halstead wrote in charging papers.
When she went before a judge yesterday afternoon for a bail hearing, defense attorney Joely O’Rourke argued for lower bail, noting Cheney had a felony case in 2014, but her other history with the law was much older.
While she is currently unemployed, O’Rourke said, it was just two years ago Cheney worked for the county, driving a dump truck and snow plows. She’s a life long Lewis County resident, O’Rourke said.
Judge Richard Brosey set her bail at $100,000, and gave her a court appointed lawyer.
Her arraignment is scheduled for next Thursday.
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For background, read “Lewis County Sheriff’s Office investigating child assault, one arrested” from Tuesday July 28, 2015, here
Tags: By Sharyn L. Decker, news reporter
wow!! What a winner of a mother!! I personally believe that people who try to throw innocent people under the bus should get their sentence at least DOUBLED when it comes down to the judge sentencing them. This POS “mother” tried to get her OWN daughter into trouble for the crime SHE did. Lewis county ought to start a landfill for winners like this pond dweller…….on second thought, nah, pimples on the ass of society like this bitch would poison our underground aquifers if we put them in a landfill…. ship them to Hanford and use them to plug holes in the leaking radioactive waste barrels buried there.
Sounds like another reason for sterilization.
@Dawn- the definition of slander–
oral defamation, in which someone tells one or more persons an untruth about another which untruth will harm the reputation of the person defamed–
Defamation—is the communication of a false statement that harms the reputation of an individual person, business, product, group, government, religion, or nation as well as other various kinds of defamation that retaliate against groundless criticism.
Sharyn is a professional investigative journalist and reports what she is given by the higher authorities, and when writing a story, she uses the word” alleged ” or ” allegedly ” , which isn’t either SLANDER or Defamation-..
As for our comments, we have Freedom Of Speech which entitles to pretty much say what we want, .
I’m almost done… Chaundra can either let these comments keep her down or she can Say” FUCK ALL THE ONES WHO DIDN’T BELIEVE IN ME
You can really see the fear. She knows her drug run is over
I am just wondering about the single mom with 3 children who lived in her house for several months earlier this year. Were those 3 young children also abused? I have more questions than answer. Maybe the prosecutor needs to do some more digging.
Just nasty welfare trash..making more nasty welfare trash!! Teach your children self respect, not to sit on their lazy asses and think that it’s ok to be a welfare RAT .. People who work every day shouldn’t have to put up with this crap.welfare and child abuse are the same, if people cannot support 1 child why do fkn trash keep spitting them out .sterilize all welfare people after 1 child..and all illegal aliens…
Dawn,
Cholo and Chandra are very far from model citizens. I would hold off in apologies thus far seeing that Cholo is pending trial for sticking a gun in many faces with no regard for anyone but himself.
Now the sorry piece of shit can be a life long prisoner in the stare of WA.
What a sick sun of a bitch. I’d like to get a hold of her myself and show her what
the fuck she deserves.
Well Sharyn. I believe that, at this point, you and everyone who slandered Chandra and Cholo on your page need to make a very public apology. Considering its now been proven that Chandra didn’t do it and everyone who posted on that thread, which was very well documented I might add, ran off about how horrible they both were.
what happened when she was younger was horrible if indeed it happend but you have a choice to be just like a low life or to be better then that she chose the chicken shit way out of it all and to try and blame her polr daughter makes her more of a monster. god bless these children and keep them strong bring justice for the person who hurt them
Definitely not condoning the crime. Just stating that studies show that most child abusers were themselves abused as children. All of this bad stuff gets perpetuated down through the generations.
Factors including the poverty suffered in rural America due to the loss of resource industry and manufacturing jobs, coupled with widespread drug addiction, and the breakup of the tradition family are creating a lost generation.
I have no pity for an adult who gives a two year old a black eye. How long she has resided here and what her childhood was like gets no sympathy from me either. She had no choices as a child , she has several as a adult and she threw her own child to the wolves as well. She is already a felon she should get no mercy from the court.
I’d say that the photo makes her look like a beast, a monster of sorts. Addiction is no excuse for what happened to the children.
Great picture Sharyn. Really captures her fear and apprehension of being caught in the system, going to jail, and perhaps looking at a long prison sentence.
I feel sorry for a lot of these people because much of what they do is from ignorance, poverty, drugs, alcohol, and the way they were raised when child and spousal abuse was hidden and didn’t normally land you in jail.
Wow! Lewis County mother of the year. I knew the charges against the daughter wouldn’t hold up. She might have a good false arrest case. Probably why they busted her for stealing candy so they have something to trade.