Creston mom gets probation for abusing children
Creston mom gets probation for abusing children
July 22, 2013 8:00 am • By Jim Osborn / josborn@columbustelegram.com
COLUMBUS — A district court judge pointed to a 42-year-old Creston woman's nearly spotless criminal history when sentencing the mother of three adopted children to four years of probation for felony child abuse.
Defendant Janelle Gertsch's crimes, clearly inappropriate instances of corporal discipline inflicted on her children, are mitigated by a lack of a previous criminal record, Platte County District Court Judge Robert Steinke said Friday.
Gertsch pleaded no contest to three counts of felony child abuse.
"You strike me as a person who has the ability to correct this problem given the opportunity to change under the supervision of probation," Steinke told the defendant while citing her lone brush with the law as a 2008 conviction for disturbing the peace.
Gertsch and her live-in boyfriend, Larry Einspahr Jr., 44, both were charged with abusing her 12-year-old son and 9-year-old daughter in episodes state officials characterized as excessive discipline.
The Creston woman was the custodial parent of three adopted children, including a second daughter, age 13. She has been separated for years from the adoptive father.
State officials removed all three children from the family home because of the excessive discipline.
The couple were charged with abusing the children last fall while punishing them excessively for household infractions.
Steinke placed most of the responsibility for the abuse on Einspahr, who was sentenced to 30 months to three years in prison in May after pleading guilty to two counts of child abuse.
Einspahr was previously convicted of assault in 1994 and 1998, a protection order violation in 2000 and resisting arrest in 2003. The child abuse counts were his first felony convictions.
The judge ordered Gertsch to have no contact with Einspahr while she is on probation.
Court documents in the case describe an investigation that got under way after school officials were made aware in late November of bruising and swelling injuries on the boy's and 9-year-girl's lower backs.
The boy and girl recounted to law enforcement authorities being beaten excessively during incidents of punishment.
The boy, said Platte County Sheriff’s Investigator Joseph Gragert in his arrest statement, described an incident in which he was struck “repeatedly” on the face by his mother in an open-handed manner after not performing a household chore.
The boy said the injuries to his face were so severe that his mother wouldn’t allow him to go to church and kept him home from school for the entire next week, which was confirmed by school attendance records.
“He was also sequestered to his basement room for several days, kept away from his sisters so they wouldn’t see how bad his injuries were and tell someone," Gragert said.
The abuse charges were all Class IIIA felonies, each punishable by a maximum of five years imprisonment and a $10,000 fine.