Dad denies making daughter eat cockroaches

MADISON, Wis., Dec. 3 (UPI) -- A Wisconsin man admitted Thursday he sometimes disciplined his teenage daughter with a belt but denied he starved her or forced her to eat cockroaches.

Porfirio Olivas, 39, of Madison said he used the belt on his daughter's buttocks when she lied and talked back to him, the Wisconsin State Journal reported. He faces 23 counts of child abuse and one count of sexually assaulting a child.

The daughter, now 15, testified Wednesday that her parents starved her and her father forced her to eat cockroaches and a spider. She said he once ordered her to eat a dead mouse, and she pretended to while actually hiding it.

Dr. Barbara Knox of the University of Wisconsin Children's Hospital told the jury earlier in the trial the daughter's weight had "completely fallen off the growth curve" and she was emaciated when she was removed from her parents' care in 2008.

The girl's mother, Minerva Lopez, has pleaded no contest to six counts of child abuse, including using a baseball bat to break her daughter's kneecap.