My question involves criminal law for the state of Maryland: My autistic nephew's (age9) stepbrother (age13) continually does things to hurt my nephew; such as, dragging him across a rug and giving him rug burns, hitting him, tripping him, and most recently drawing a Hitler style mustache on him with permanent ink. My nephew had a slight reaction to the ink, but it eventually went away. At what point can the stepbrother be charged with some form of assault? His father does punish this boy but he appears to be a bad seed with no remorse for his actions. His own father has told him that if another incident occurs he will do whatever it takes to show him the consequences of his actions.

