A Lewis County Superior Court judge set bail at $100,000 on Thursday for a Centralia man accused of assaulting a 6-year-old child.
Jared Steve Armitage, 22, is charged with a felony count of third-degree assault of a child (domestic violence), which is a Class C felony punishable by up to five years in prison and a $10,000 fine.
He appeared before Judge Joely Yeager via a video feed from the Lewis County Jail, where he has been held since his arrest on Wednesday, Oct. 14.
The Lewis County Prosecutor’s Office requested a bail of $25,000. Armitage’s defense attorney asked that he be released with an unsecured bond, meaning he would not have to pay money to be released from jail, because of his lack of felony criminal history.
Yeager set bail at $100,000, quadrupling the request from prosecutors. Calling the allegations “disturbing,” she cited a doctor’s opinion, which was later confirmed, that the child showed signs of petechiae, pinpoint-sized spots of bleeding under the skin or mucous membranes.
She said the finding “gives this court great concern for lethality or potential lethality in this case.”
On Oct. 7, an officer with the Centralia Police Department responded with Child Protective Services to a report from a Centralia elementary school that the 6-year-old boy arrived at school with a “visible abrasion on his head and a bunch of little red spots on his neck, approximately 1 inch tall by 2-3 inches wide,” according to a probable cause affidavit filed by prosecutors.
The boy stated his “dad smacked him on the head with his ring and that his dad was mad at him.”
When asked about the mark on his neck, he said, "I don't know" and then later said, "I'm not going to tell you" and "I can't tell you," according to court documents.
The marks were first seen when the boy came to school on Monday, Oct. 5.
The officer went to the boy’s home and spoke to his mother and her boyfriend, Armitage, who the boy refers to as his father.
Armitage claimed he was playing with the boy on Sunday, Oct. 4, and that he slapped the boy on the side of his head. The boy’s mother told police she saw Armitage playing with the boy but did not see him hit him, according to court documents.
“When spoken with again on October 14, 2026, (Armitage) said he was playing with (the boy) and holding his head, moving it back and forth,” the affidavit states. “He said (the boy) said inappropriate things and he slapped him in the mouth and (the boy) put his head down, which caused him to hit him on the head instead of the cheek, with his ring hand. He admitted he hit him too hard.”
Armitage has a fourth-degree assault (domestic violence) conviction from October 2025 and a third-degree malicious mischief charge from 2023.
He was booked into the Lewis County Jail at about 2 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 14.
