AUBURN – Before Jeremy Allen proposed to his wife, he read several Christian-based books on love and marriage to make sure he was making the right choice.

He took the same approach to becoming a father.

Before he and his wife adopted their son, Nathaniel, from Guatemala, he read many books about raising and disciplining boys.

It was from one of those books, Allen claims, that he learned the techniques he used on his son the night of Feb. 13, 2003. “I wanted him to grow up and be an obedient man and follow the rules of society,” Allen testified Wednesday. “If you establish a pattern when he’s young, when he’s old, he won’t depart from it.”

Swearing at me’

A 30-year-old Navy journalist, Allen is currently on trial in Androscoggin County Superior Court, charged with assaulting his 21-month-old son.

On Wednesday, Allen took the stand and told the jury how and why he hit his son’s bare buttocks with a wooden spoon.

He said the boy, who he and his wife, Sarah, adopted from Guatemala in April 2002, was disobeying his mother by refusing to pick up his toys.

“He knew what she was trying to say, but he didn’t follow through,” Allen testified about his son’s behavior that night. “He just ignored her.”

Allen described the boy as looking at him with anger and defiance.

“It was almost like he was swearing at me,” he said.

Allen testified that he used several techniques before resorting to spanking the boy’s bare buttocks. As suggested in the books, he testified, he first tried talking to the boy.

Then he tried putting him on the floor, grabbing his face and making him pay attention. He tried making him stand in the corner, and he tried spanking him with the spoon over his diaper.

When none of that worked, he said, he took off the boy’s diaper and spanked the boy three times.

“I wasn’t trying to hurt him,” Allen said. “I was just trying to redirect his attention.”

Eight imprints

Doctors who examined Nathaniel testified earlier in the trial that they spotted at least eight imprints on the boy’s buttocks and upper thigh. Allen insisted Wednesday that he hit him only three times.

He said he stopped because it wasn’t working. At that point, he said, his wife “sprinkled” water in the boy’s face, and that finally calmed him down.

The bruises on Nathaniel’s buttocks were discovered the following day after the boy was rushed to the hospital with a fatal head injury. He died the following day.

Sarah Allen has been charged with causing the boy’s death. Police say that on Feb. 14, 2003, after Jeremy Allen left for a business trip, Sarah Allen shook the boy with enough force to rattle his brain.

Her case went to trial in June, but it ended without a verdict because jurors were unable to agree. A second trial is scheduled for next month.

A quick bond

Assistant Attorney General Lisa Marchese, who is prosecuting both cases for the state, has described Sarah and Jeremy Allen as inexperienced and abusive parents who teamed up against their son.

Jeremy Allen testified Wednesday that Nathaniel had started misbehaving about six weeks before his death.

He started to tell the jury his theory that the boy was suffering from a neurological problem related to a hepatitis B vaccination, before he was quickly warned by the judge that he was not allowed to give medical testimony.

One example Allen gave was that his son often got tense when having his diaper changed.

“Did it ever occur to you that he didn’t like his diaper taken off because he didn’t want to be spanked by you?” Marchese asked during her cross-examination.

Allen’s attorney, George Hess, has argued that Allen was simply disciplining his son, using a reasonable amount of force permitted under Maine’s corporal punishment law.

After the state rested its case Wednesday, several of Allen’s friends and relatives took the stand. They described Allen as a loving, gentle father who developed a quick bond with his adopted son.

“I never saw him lose his temper,” testified Allen’s grandfather, Richard Mountfort Jr.

Allen is scheduled to take the stand again today. The trial is expected to conclude by the end of the week.

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