BATON ROUGE - A woman employed at the Harmony Center in Baton Rouge is accused of pouring boiling water on her patient's back, causing him severe burns. The defendant in this case told WBRZ she's been wrongfully accused. 

Baton Rouge police said that in November, employees at the Harmony Center group home reported of a non-verbal autistic man suffering from a severe burn on his back. 

BRPD's investigation resulted in the arrest of his caretaker, Dairyonna James, who was accused of pouring boiling water on his back after he grabbed her to get her attention. 

We went to the group home on Florida Street where the incident happened.

No one answered the door, but the lights were on. 

We also tried multiple times to contact the administrative office, where we saw employees coming and going into work. The staff hung up on us when we called. 

On Wednesday, James was booked into the East Baton Rouge Parish Prison on charges of cruelty to the infirm and aggravated second degree battery.

Dairyonna James called us and said that she came to work at 10 p.m. that day, and that following morning, when she went to wake the patient, she noticed the third-degree burns on his back. She said she immediately reported it to her manager, Joseph Jackson, who works in the administrative office.

James said she was working by herself, assigned to seven people that night instead of just one. The employee she was supposed to relieve left early and was also the one to file the police report.  

She said she never touched the victim. 

James said she was suspended for two weeks after the complaint and was then fired. 

Collis Temple owns the Harmony Center. He didn't return calls Friday. Neither did BRPD.