COEUR d'ALENE - A 19-year-old Hayden man pleaded not guilty Monday to a felony charge of injury to a child for allegedly using a 25-pound bag of dried drink mix to hold a girl face down on a storage room floor so she would fall asleep there.

Zacharee J. Wright, who appeared in Kootenai County District Court, was arrested because his alleged actions could have suffocated the then 18-month-old child under the weight of the sack, according to a Kootenai County Sheriff's Department report.

Kootenai County deputy prosecutor Donna Gardner told the court Monday, "That is, in a way, torture."

District Court Judge John Luster did not set an initial date for what is expected to be a two- to three-day trial. Wright is being held at the Kootenai County jail on $15,000 bond. He was arrested in early December.

Wright, the girl's stepfather, reportedly told a sheriff's deputy that he did not provide her with a blanket or pillow to sleep with on the cold, bare concrete floor at the home in the 1100 block of East Whispering Pines Road.

Wright, the girl, and the mother, Leann C. Wright, live in the basement of the residence, where the storage room is located.

A sheriff's deputy's report said, "Zacharee told me that (the girl) was left in the room for approximately 30 minutes and told me that he checked on her approximately every 10 minutes."

Another family member, not the mother, found the child after going into the storage room to get some canned food.

The officer wrote, "(The other family member) told me while she was in the room she heard whimpering."

The family member told Wright's father, Daniel Wright, who removed the girl immediately from the room and called law enforcement.

The deputy noticed a red mark with dirt and grime on the child's cheek, "which appeared as though her face had been pushed down onto the concrete floor."