One of the abused children
In November, Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald charged Arturo Bazan, his wife Dulce Bazan, and son Carlos Bazan-Hernandez with two counts of first-degree child abuse and two counts of torture.
The three are accused of abusing Arturo’s sons, Jonathan, 9, and Ethan,11.
WXYZ investigative reporter Ross Jones reports that before the charges were finally filed, Children's Protective Services in Oakland County was alerted more than a half dozen times in less than three years that two Pontiac boys were malnourished, abused, and neglected.
Jones reports the complaints were closed by child protective services without being substantiated.
According to a second complaint, Jonathan “arrived at school with a swollen face and a black eye.” He told teachers “three different explanations” about how the injury happened and that his father “told him to tell the doctor his black eye happened at school.”
Jones reports that between 2022 and 2025, school principal Dr. Letha Hopkins-Powell and other staff from Whitman Elementary School in Pontiac, where the boys attended school, repeatedly alerted CPS to alleged abuse or neglect happening inside the children's home.
Last fall, the boys had been pulled out of school. In November, Jonathan landed in an emergency room in Pontiac, where doctors said he was skin and bones. He wasn’t breathing on his own.
Charges were filed in November. The children are in foster care.
The attorney for Jonathan and Ethan’s older brother, Carlos, denied police and prosecutors' claims that he tortured or abused the boys, according to the WXYZ report. He said the family utilized holistic medicine to treat each boy’s health problems.
“These are poor, uneducated laborers trying to do the best that they can,” said attorney Mani Khavajian. “Sometimes that means using home remedies when you don’t have insurance.”
Child protective services did not comment to Jone, citing privacy laws.
