Father gives up parental rights in incest case

Father gives up parental rights in incest case

By Karen Smith

Mirror Staff Writer

It’s a sad case. A Berkley man who works for a state agency charged with protecting children takes in a 15-year-old foster girl, sexually assaults her on several occasions while she is living with him and his family and, after adopting her, impregnates her when she is 17, fathering his own grandchild.

But it has a good ending, according to Oakland County Assistant Prosecutor Robert Giles, who handles other child abuse cases as a member of the prosecutor’s child sexual assault section.

The daughter, now 22, has become a productive member of society who’s very protective of her daughter, now 3.

“She’s taking care of a child she didn’t want,” Giles said.

The father, Gerald Dale Snapp, pleaded no contest last week to eight felony charges, voluntarily gave up his parental rights to three other children, and is scheduled to be sentenced April 23 to up to 30 years in prison.

A no contest plea has the same effect as a guilty plea, though a defendant pleading no contest neither admits nor disputes a charge.

Snapp was bound over for trial following a preliminary examination Feb. 12 in 45A District Court, in which the daughter testified about the assaults that took place twice when she was 15 and another time when she 16 while she was a foster child living in his home on Cummings and when he had intercourse with her after she was adopted by him in September 2003.

DNA testing determined with 99.99 percent certainty that Snapp is the 3-year-old’s father, according to court documents.

Snapp pleaded no contest to the criminal charges March 27 and to the neglect charges March 28 in Oakland County Circuit Court.

Giles said Snapp may have pleaded no contest because of the parental rights trial. “He was in the middle of a neglect trail that is a civil proceeding. His guilty pleas could have been used against him.”

The neglect trial for Snapp’s wife, Hope, is scheduled to continue April 4 before Oakland County Circuit Judge Martha D. Anderson.

The couple’s two biological daughters and adopted son have been removed from their home on Cummings.

Snapp worked for the Michigan Department of Human Services at the time of his arrest, though he did not deal directly with children in his position.

ksmith@hometownlife.com | (248) 901-2592