LITTLETON, Colo. -- An after-school child care worker has been charged with misdemeanor child abuse for duct taping a 9-year-old boy's hands over his ears, authorities told 7NEWS Monday.

A Douglas County sheriff's official identified the suspect as Matthew James McGregor, 21.

McGregor works for Roxborough Roxstars, a before and after school child care program at the Roxborough Primary and Intermediate schools in the Douglas County school district. According to the state's child care facility search, Roxborough Roxstars can care for up to 85 children, ages 5 to 13.

According to the Roxborough Roxstars website, which can be accessed through the Roxborough Primary and Intermediate school website, the child care facility states:

"Our mission is to provide a safe, fun, enriching and developmentally appropriate enviornment [sic] for children in our community. Our talented, nuturing [sic] childcare professionals are committed to offering the highest quality care for your children at an affordable price for parents."

The official charge is "child abuse: knowing or reckless bodily injury," court records said. Sheriff's Sgt. Ron Hanavan said the charge means that "a person acts knowingly or recklessly and the child abuse results in any injury other than serious bodily injury."

Hanavan went on to say that serious bodily injury would mean broken bones or disfigurement. Any other injury could simply mean causing pain.

He told 7NEWS based on the incident report it sounded like this wasn't a punishment, but rather McGregor and the boy were messing around.

"That kind of behavior is not tolerated," said Susan Meek, Douglas County school district spokeswoman. "As soon as we became aware of the incident, the principal reported it to the sheriff's office, who conducted an investigation, and the employee was terminated immediately."

The school district sent a letter home with parents from Roxborough. It stated that it was a substitute employee and as soon as the district became aware of the situation, a complete investigation was conducted. As a result, the substitute employee is no longer employed by the district.

Roxborough Letter To Parents

7NEWS checked the background of McGregor and found that in 2008, at age 19, he was arrested on charges of underage possession and consumption of alcohol, possession of less than an ounce of marijuana and drug paraphernalia possession, court records showed.

McGregor pleaded guilty to the drug paraphernalia offense, and the marijuana possession offense was dismissed, records showed. He also pleaded guilty to the underage possession and consumption of alcohol offense, but it was later dismissed after he successful completed a treatment program, records showed.

"We conducted the two background checks that we typically do for employees in 2006 and they both came back clear," said Meek.

McGregor was not a certified employee, like teachers are. According to Meek, the Colorado Department of Education would notify a school district if a certified employee was arrested for a crime. She said McGregor was a part time employee, working in a classified position. The district had not done a background check on McGregor since he was hired in 2006.

"If the district had known of an offense like that, it definitely would have been looked at and we would have taken the necessary action, for sure," said Meek.

7NEWS also checked with the Department of Human Services and found that Roxborough Roxstars was last inspected in May 2009 and has a clean record.

According to Hanavan, two other employees, Cody Rhodes Plemons and Erin Elizabeth Kellerman, were charged with failure to report child abuse.

"As soon as they saw the incident, they intervened and stopped the incident, however, they did not report it immediately, and for that reason, they were cited with failure to report," said Meek.