'Jessie Slaughter' Dad Charged With Child Abuse
March 26, 2011— -- The father of a Florida seventh grader whose profanity-laced video prompted online death threats last year has been arrested for allegedly assaulting his daughter.
Gene Leonhardt, 53, was charged by police in Marion County, Fla., with child abuse in the incident, which occurred last month.
According to the police report, first reported on the website Smoking Gun, the girl said she had been arguing with her father when he "punched her, causing her to have a bloody and swollen lips."
Leonhardt pleaded not guilty to the child abuse charge and was freed on $5,000 bond.
The girl, who goes by the screen name "Jessi Slaughter," saw her YouTube video rocket across the Internet last summer. In it, her rage boiled with violent threats and graphic language that she used against online tormentors she said were bullying her.
Her father also appeared on the video, angrily vowing to call the "cyber police" to get relief for his daughter.
"I'm happy with my life OK? And if you can't, like, realize that and stop hating you know what?" the then 11-year-old said in the video. "I'll pop a Glock in your mouth and make a brain slushy."
"Because you hater-b*****s? You're just, like, jealous of me," she said. "Stop hating on me. I'm just a normal girl who's perfect in every way and you're just jealous."
She ended the video by giving the middle finger and blowing a kiss at the camera.
"I stand behind it 100 percent because it cleared up a lot of things that were posted," she told ABCNews.com.
"I just want it to kind of like turn positive," she said. "And I kind of do like the attention but I don't like so much negative attention."
Jessi created an Internet firestorm when she posted the nearly five-minute video raging against online bullies who had called her names and accused a friend of raping her.
