A hulking Staten Island father pleaded guilty Tuesday to torturing his 9-year-old son - all because he thought the boy swiped $20 from his wallet.
Authorities said the dad stripped the kid naked, beat him with a spatula, burned his hands on a stove top and then stuffed him inside an oven, threatening to turn it on.
A prosecutor said the crime was shocking in its violence. Yet when James Moss comes up for sentencing Friday, his son will urge a judge to spare his father from prison, sources said.
"In over 15 years as a district attorney and an assistant district attorney, this was one of the most shocking and sadistic cases of child abuse I have ever prosecuted," said Staten Island District Attorney Daniel Donovan.
Moss, 53, faces up to seven years in prison for the attack on his forgiving son, Christopher.
The dad, who is 6-foot-2 and weighs 270 pounds, threatened to kill the boy on May 12, 2010 at their Graniteville home, authorities said. He took Christopher to the basement and ripped off his clothes. Moss pulled the boy into the kitchen and used a spatula to beat him across his back.
The monster dad heated up two burners on the stove and held the defenseless boy's hands on them until his skin began to peel. Prosecutors said Moss punched his son in the face and then forced him into the oven.
"I'm going to burn you alive!" he hollered, according to published reports.
Donovan said the boy screamed and begged to be let out of the oven. The dad threatened to turn it on, but eventually let him out and threw him, still naked, out the front door.
Skin was falling off the boy's burned hands, but Moss coldheartedly ignored his son's pain, and never took him to a hospital, court papers say. Instead, Moss ordered Christopher to sit naked on the floor "like a dog," the court papers charge.
Christopher complied and sat naked until his mother came home and finally took him to a hospital. He was treated for second-and-third-degree burns, and cuts to his back and knees.
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