Judge weighs arguments in Picatinny Arsenal couple's resentencing

David Porter  |  Associated Press

NEWARK — A federal judge whose initial sentences for an ex-Army couple convicted of child endangerment were thrown out for being too lenient heard arguments Wednesday at a resentencing hearing that revisited graphic details of the years of abuse.

Five years and two trials since the arrest of then-Army Maj. John Jackson and his wife, Carolyn Jackson, the court heard from one of their former foster children, a 12-year-old girl who lived with the family between the ages of 2 and 4.

Standing before U.S. District Judge Katharine Hayden and reading a prepared statement, the girl said while she doesn't remember everything from that period, she remembers "being hit and punished constantly." She added she still bears psychological scars from the abuse.

Her adoptive mother also spoke and told Hayden the girl spends about seven hours per week in various types of therapy, suffers from anxiety and post-traumatic stress and is prone to violent episodes.

"The Jacksons destroyed her chance for a normal life and crushed her spirit," said the woman whom the Associated Press is not identifying to protect the identity of the girl.
Hayden said she would impose a sentence Thursday.

The Jacksons lived at the Army's Picatinny Arsenal facility when they were charged in 2013, and they were convicted in 2015 on multiple counts of child endangerment. Prosecutors had sought sentences of 15 to 19 years, but Hayden sentenced them to probation and two years, respectively.

Those sentences were thrown out last year by an appeals court that Hayden didn't correctly apply sentencing guidelines and imposed sentences that didn't reflect the seriousness of the crimes.

At trial, prosecutors presented evidence that the Jacksons regularly beat their three young foster children and denied them food, water and medical care. Their biological son testified the couple forced the children to eat hot pepper flakes and drink hot sauce as punishment.

The children suffered broken bones and were severely underweight and had other health problems when they were removed from the home in 2010. One of the foster children died, but the Jacksons weren't charged with causing his death.

Lawyers for the Jacksons have argued that the children had serious health problems before they came to live with the Jacksons, and that Hayden's initial sentencing was correct because prosecutors did not connect specific acts by the couple to injuries the children suffered.

"There can't be some global finding of, 'Well, all these bad things happened so they must have caused something,'" defense attorney Herbert Waldman told Hayden on Wednesday.

Joshua Jackson, the child who died, "had a very difficult life, and Carolyn did a lot to fail him, and she acknowledges that," Waldman said. "But his serious medical issues simply weren't caused by her or John."

Since the Jacksons lived at the Army facility about 35 miles northwest of Newark, they were tried in federal court. Because child endangerment is not a federal crime, state endangerment charges were merged into the federal indictment to go along with a conspiracy count and two assault counts.

Though the Jacksons were acquitted of the assault counts, prosecutors argued Hayden should sentence them under federal assault guidelines because the nature of the endangerment counts made them "sufficiently analogous" to assault.