CLEVELAND, Ohio -- A sex offender recently released from a 17-year prison sentence repeatedly punched a six-year-old girl in her stomach when she refused to call him "daddy," Cleveland police say.

Jason Singleton, 34, is charged with third-degree felony child endangering in the attacks against his girlfriend's daughter, according to Cleveland Municipal Court records.

The beatings happened several times between November 2017 and March, court records say.

Singleton, who is not the child's biological father, threw the girl on a bed and punched her in the stomach, court records say.

Singleton did the same thing to the child on other occasions if she did not address him as "daddy," records show.

Police began investigating the case early Thursday after the girl's mother called 911, according to police dispatch records.

Singleton served a 17-year prison sentence and was deemed a habitual sex offender for a 2000 conviction for rape and felonious assault in North Royalton, according to Ohio Department of Correction and Rehabilitation records. Court records say that Singleton forced his way into a home, threatened or attacked a woman with a knife and then raped her.

He was released from prison at the end of May and is currently wanted for violating the conditions of his parole, according to Department of Correction and Rehabilitation records.

Singleton is accused of committing several other felonies in Cuyahoga County since his release last year.

Court records say that Singleton carjacked a woman at gunpoint Jan. 9 at Aldi on Kinsman Road in Cleveland. Garfield Heights police spotted him speeding through a school zone two days later in the stolen 2002 Pontiac Sunfire, court records say.

Singleton sped away from the traffic stop and led officers on a short chase, a Garfield Heights police report says. He was arrested after he crashed into a fire hydrant and into the front of a home on Park Heights Avenue near Turney Road, the report says.

A grand jury later handed up indictments against Singleton in connection with the case. He is charged with aggravated robbery, kidnapping, grand theft of a motor vehicle, theft, criminal damaging, receiving stolen property and four counts of failure to comply with police, court records show.

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