Parents surrender parental rights
KEITH MORELLI
The Tampa Tribune
TAMPA - A Plant City couple have agreed to give up parental rights to their seven adopted children and never to adopt again, according to a plea deal signed this week.
Marjorie Moss, 54, of 8401 W. Franklin Road, was found guilty of one count of child abuse in circuit court Monday, said Hillsborough Assistant State Attorney Michael Sinacore. After pleading guilty, Moss was placed on five years' probation and legally renounced her parental rights.
Her husband, Charles, 73, was initially charged with neglect by Hillsborough County sheriff's deputies but was never formally charged by the state. He also gave up his current and future parenting rights, Sinacore said. The couple agreed not to contact their adopted children.
Initially, each was taken in as a foster child, but the Mosses ended up adopting all seven, the prosecutor said. The children have been returned to foster care, he said.
Reached at home Wednesday night, Marjorie Moss declined to comment.
"It was part of the plea agreement that I not say anything," she said. "I'm sorry."
Deputies said the couple waged a campaign of abuse against their children, who now range in age from 9 to 18. The abuse, which began in 1993, was mostly physical, Sinacore said. Allegations included spanking the children, depriving them of food and once locking a child outside as punishment.
Deputies originally charged Marjorie Moss with 34 counts of child abuse, Sinacore said.
"Basically, it was every single instance the police could identify," he said.
But the stories of the children were inconsistent in subsequent interviews, Sinacore said, and the 34 counts of abuse against Marjorie Moss shrunk to one.
The state Department of Children and Families investigated the Moss household three times in the 1990s, but charges were never substantiated, Sinacore said.
"The children always recanted," he said.
Sinacore said the most recent investigation began in April 2000, when a daughter ran away and told of abuse in the house.