A Lehigh Acres woman said she saw her neighbor, a Lee County Deputy, dragging his 9-year-old little girl by the hair in the family driveway, pulling her by the arm and neck while trying to cover her mouth.
Deputy Matthew Curbelo hasn't been charged or arrested and remains on the job pending an internal investigation.
Amanda Curbelo told NBC2 on December 6 that her two kids were staying in the family’s home with their father when he was allegedly drunk and began allegedly abusing the children.
She said her daughter was able to bust out her bedroom window and then escape with her little brother.
“My children were here at the house with their father for his unsupervised time. That was his weekend he was supposed to have them,” said Amanda Curbelo.
She said that daddy time turned into a nightmare for her children.
She said her daughter eventually called her, screaming that her father was trying to kill her, and she could hear her son screaming in the background too.
Amanda, though, was unaware of where her daughter even was.
“The neighbor said I have your kids. She said they came running to my house screaming for help,” Amanda recalled.
The neighbor, who lives across the street from the family, didn’t want to be identified but she described what she saw.
“I just heard some children calling help me, help me! He's going to kill us. Help me,” the neighbor recalled.
She opened her door and witnessed and said she couldn’t believe her eyes.
“I see a little boy and when I opened the door he just jumped and go inside of my house and hid behind my big couch,” the neighbor said.
She said the little boy’s 9-year-old sister was in the clutches of her father, Deputy Curbelo.
“I see him dragging his daughter, my neighbor, he's a police officer, dragging his daughter and pulling her by her hair. Pulling her by her arm like trying to cover her mouth not to talk,” the neighbor described.
NBC2 obtained pictures of the little girl after deputies arrived. The pictures showed scratches on the child’s arms and marks on her neck.
“The little girl has bruise on her neck. She was bleeding. I don't know if the blooding was from him or the broken window. It was chaos that night,” the neighbor concluded.
However, despite that chaos, Deputy Matthew Curbello was never charged or arrested.
His wife filed a temporary protection order and on Monday, NBC2 was in court when she asked the judge to continue the no-contact order.
The sheriff's office confirmed Matthew Curbelo was being investigated internally and has been assigned to desk duty.
Curbelo’s attorney asked the judge to return his gun so he could continue working as a deputy. Judge Cynthia Pivacek said no.
His attorneys want his children to testify to the judge about what happened, and Amanda Curbelo said her daughter wants to tell the judge in her own words what happened. That is scheduled for March 24, 2025.
However, Matthew Curbelo did not want to talk to NBC2 after the hearing.
When asked repeatedly to speak, Curbelo continued to walk out of the courtroom with his attorneys at his side after the judge agreed to continue an order forbidding him to have contact with his family.