Creston man headed to prison for abuse
May 07, 2013 8:00 am • By Jim Osborn / josborn@columbustelegram.com(1) Comments
COLUMBUS – A district court judge said a 44-year-old Creston man engaged in a “systematic” pattern of physically abusing two of his live-in girlfriend’s three adopted children in the family home last fall.
“These were extreme acts of physical punishment that included systematic spanking over timed intervals,” Platte County District Court Judge Robert Steinke said before sentencing Larry Einspahr Jr. to 30 months to three years in prison on two counts of felony child abuse.
Steinke imposed the prison sentence after the defendant vowed he wouldn’t return to the family home if given a sentence of probation.
“I’m not going back. I don’t want to put my kids through that again,’’ Einspahr pleaded. “I ask the court to have mercy on me. I pray to God that someday my kids will forgive me.”
Steinke said the children remained victims of the abuse.
“The children have physically recovered, but the emotional recovery continues,’’ said Steinke before giving Einspahr credit for 150 days served in the county jail since his arrest in early December.
During arguments before sentencing, the prosecution contended Enspahr was a “chronic” abuser, while the defense maintained the defendant’s conduct involved a couple of incidents in which punishment got out of hand.
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, each punishable by up to five years imprisonment, were his first felony convictions.
Meanwhile, Einspahr’s former live-in girlfriend, Janelle Gertsch, 42, is awaiting a district court trial set to begin June 18.
Gertsch pleaded not guilty to five counts of felony child abuse in connection with incidents that occurred from September through November of last year. She also is accused of abusing the same two children in episodes of what state officials characterized as excessive discipline.
The Creston woman was the custodial parent of three adopted children, including a second daughter, age 13. She is divorced from the adoptive father.
State officials have removed all three children from the family home because of the excessive discipline.
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 described 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.