Mother will serve two-year sentence for child abuse

Jeremy Meyer

Judge Theresa Cisneros fixed a cool gaze upon the defendant, a woman just convicted of forcing her adopted son to live for five years in a tiny, windowless space beneath the stairs.

Then the judge unloaded.

"There is something seriously mentally ill about (you)," Cisneros said to the 39-year-old woman during Thursday's sentencing hearing in El Paso County's courthouse.

"This case makes me sick," Cisneros said. "It's just sickening. It makes me sick. It makes me sick."

The scolding over, Cisneros threw the book at the woman, a two- year sentence in the El Paso County jail for two misdemeanor child abuse charges. Prosecutors had agreed to drop a felony sexual abuse charge in exchange for guilty pleas to the misdemeanors.

It was the stiffest penalty the law would allow.

"Even though she goes to jail, her cell will be bigger than (the boy's) was," Cisneros told the courtroom. "She'll get three meals a day and will be taken care of. (Her son) didn't have any of that."

The Gazette is withholding the defendant's name to protect the identities of her kids.

Before the woman was sentenced, prosecutors detailed how she and her ex-husband created a hellish life for the boy, who is now 13. Off and on for five years, prosecutors charged the couple forced the boy to masturbate in front of siblings, made him eat his meals on the floor while the rest of the family dined at the table and placed a dog shock collar around his neck.

Det. Gary Darress of the Colorado Springs Police Department said the boy had to do calisthenics in the nude and earn his meals and play time through household chores.

On good days, Darress said, the boy lived in a sparse basement day room, kept separate from the rest of the family. When he was bad, Darress said the boy was put in the "hole," a concrete space beneath the stairs with an alarm that would sound if he opened the door. He was given only a blanket and a bucket in which to relieve himself.

One neighbor child told Darress he remembered playing with the boy's brother and hearing a crying sound coming from beneath the stairs. When social workers inspected the home after a complaint was made by the ex-husband, Darress said they found the bucket was full to the rim with urine and excrement.

"I have unfortunately been in this job and have seen a lot of cases. ... But this case is the worst," Darress said. "Every time I read this case, I'm horrified."

Darress said the boy lived like a prisoner of war and likened his case to the fictional character Harry Potter, who was forced to sleep beneath the stairs by his aunt and uncle.

"But Harry Potter was able to use magic to escape," he said. "I don't know what's going to happen to this boy."

The boy and six brothers and sisters who lived in the same home, and range in ages from 5 to 16to 5, are in foster care and in therapy. A civil proceeding is under way to decide whether the woman or her ex-husband will ever get parental rights again. The ex- husband also accepted a plea agreement in the case and will be sentenced on Jan. 7.

Judge Cisneros will impose the sentence.

Before she was sentenced Thursday, the woman took the stand and claimed her adopted son has a mental disorder and is beset by poor therapy.

"He was a very difficult child," she said. "In the last year he was with me, I shouldn't have been mothering him. I did not like him. And for a mother to say that, I think that's abuse."

His deviant behavior was out of her control, which she said included masturbating in public and relieving himself in rooms around the house just to spite her. She explained therapists from around the state tried to help her, some of whom advised her to institutionalize the boy. She now says she wishes she would have taken their advice.

Instead, she says she followed their therapies for his attachment disorder, such as employing reverse psychology and making him earn his meals and play time through good behavior.

She said one unlicensed therapist, Deborah Hage of Silverthorne, told her to put the boy in the space beneath the stairs when he was bad.

Hage wouldn't comment on the case and said she was "never the family therapist."

The woman's friends, neighbors and her sister took the stand to give character witness statements, saying the woman was always a loving and caring mother. Most, however, admitted to seeing the "hole" but thought it was just a way to keep the troubled boy in line.

Defense attorney William Schoewe asked Judge Cisneros to consider this and waive the jail time. But Cisneros disagreed, giving the woman the maximum year in jail for each misdemeanor offense and making them run consecutively.

Deputy District Attorney Geoff Heim said Thursday he wishes he could have charged the woman with a felony, but Colorado law doesn't have a felony statute for a crime of psychological abuse against a child, only physical and sexual. He also said it would have been difficult to prove sexual abuse.

Cisneros said the other children in the family are showing serious mental health problems. And she wonders if they will ever be able to live a normal life.

"All these children were forced to participate in the abuse," Cisneros said. "These are kids that this mother promised a judge on another day that she would take care of them. And she violated that."

Cisneros was dismayed that the woman tried to blame others for making her abuse the boy.

"She doesn't appear to show any empathy or remorse for what she did," Cisneros said. She said the photographs of the space beneath the stairs and the bucket filled with human waste told the whole story.

"I can't imagine how long it would take a little boy to fill up that pot," she said. "She sought out troubled children and said she would give them the best life she could. And they've been subjected to abuse. I'm just really bothered by that. We all have a responsibility to treat people the way we would like to be treated. Until she recognizes that she caused all of this, she won't get any help."