The Florida mother who locked her adopted son in an eight-by-eight-foot box for hours each day was seen crying after learning he would not have to serve jail time.
Tracy Ferriter, 48, will only be required to serve probation and house arrest after pleading guilty June 24 to one count each of first-degree aggravated child abuse, third-degree false imprisonment and third-degree child neglect. reports the Atlanta Black Star.
She and her husband, Timothy, say they locked their adopted teenage son in the box to discipline him for lying, stealing valuables, attacking family members and threatening classmates.
The couple said the boy, who was adopted by the Ferriters as a toddler in Vietnam, suffered from ADHD and reactive attachment disorder, which affects a child’s ability to form emotional attachments.
“We lived a life that was not what the media showed us,” Ferriter said. He said at a press conference after the hearingwhile crying dry tears.
Tracy Ferriter, 48, was seen crying after pleading guilty to one count each of first-degree aggravated child abuse, third-degree false imprisonment and third-degree child neglect.
“There were a lot of things that nobody knew,” she insisted. “We were a very loving family. I love my kids. We just tried to do the best we could with what we had.”
Tracy and her husband were Arrested in February 2022 after her son ran away and revealed his plight to police, telling them he would rather be locked up in prison than sent back to his devout Catholic parents.
He told officers he ran away “because I feel like no one loves me” and begged them to take him in because “I would rather be in prison than at home,” the affidavit added.
The boy went on to describe how he was barred from the rest of his home, fed leftovers and forced to use the bathroom in a bucket.
He also claimed his parents spanked him, whipped him with a belt, punched him in the face and spit on him, monitored him via a Ring camera and only let him out for lessons and yard work.
“(The victim) stated that the spankings took place in his bedroom and that he was naked, bent over his bed. (The victim) stated that he could remember one of the spankings being so painful that he fell off the bed from the pain,” the affidavit states.
Tracy Ferriter, left, and her husband, Timothy, were arrested in February 2022 after their adopted son told police officers what he had endured.
The couple locked their adopted son in an eight-by-eight-foot box inside their garage, only letting him out for a few hours a day.
When investigators later seized the Ring device, they found thousands of videos showing the boy being harassed and locked up on a daily basis, according to the documents.
“In one particular video, (the victim) was locked in his room after it was discovered that he had ‘stolen’ chocolate chip cookies from the kitchen despite being told he could not eat them,” an arrest affidavit states.
‘This behavior resulted in (the victim) having the sheets pulled off the mattress, the mattress being lifted and thrown against the wall and Timothy grabbing (the victim) by the arm and yelling at her.’
At a preliminary hearing, the unidentified boy also testified that the abusive behavior began in late December 2021, shortly after the family moved to South Florida from Arizona.
The abuse continued for six weeks at a time, investigators said. However, it is unclear whether there had been any abuse before then.
The unidentified boy said he was barred from the rest of his home, fed scraps and forced to use the bathroom in a bucket while other children were free to roam the family’s $750,000 property.
When police began investigating the abuse allegations, the parents claimed the makeshift cage in the garage was a home office, even though it had no windows or door handle on the inside, but instead a deadbolt and the only light switch located outside.
It was also fitted with a CCTV camera so the couple could monitor the boy day and night as he slept, ate and spent up to 18 hours at a time inside the small plaster cube, only being allowed out to go to school, it is alleged.
The parents later changed their story and said the room was meant to be a disciplinary measure to protect other family members from harm.
Her three other children lived normally on the family’s spacious $750,000 property, while her brother was fed scraps and forced to do yard work and write lines for minor offenses like “stealing” cookies, according to court documents.
Timothy was convicted of child abuse and sentenced in November to five years in state prison followed by five years of probation.
The unnamed teenager described his living conditions as “dehumanizing” during Timothy’s trial last year. According to the Palm Beach Post.
Still, the boy asked Circuit Judge Howard Coates for leniency after being found guilty of aggravated child abuse, false imprisonment and child neglect.
“My father was a good person who made a very serious mistake,” the boy said. “He was not a bad father.”
But Coates sentenced the father on Nov. 15 to five years in state prison, followed by five years of probation.
She was prohibited from having contact with any of her older children until they became consenting adults at the age of 18, while any contact with her younger son was to be supervised.
Timothy was also ordered to complete 40 hours of anger management classes and 40 hours of parenting classes, and undergo a mental health evaluation.
“There were plenty of opportunities for the defendant to reflect on whether what he did was wrong,” Coates said during sentencing.
“It seems like he never took the time to reflect and never concluded that what he did was wrong.”
Attorneys representing Tracy said she decided to plead guilty to give “her family some peace” and to spare her children from having to endure another trial.
Lawyers representing his wife, Tracy, said that if she had gone to trial on the charges, she would have been found not guilty.
But his lawyer, Marc Shiner, said he decided to plead guilty to give “some peace to his family” and to spare his children from having to endure another trial.
“Even though she had a good chance of being exonerated, she really wanted to put this behind her so her children could have some peace,” she said. told WPTV.
He added that his client is “not a monster” and hoped his case would shed light on reactive attachment disorder.
‘He is an extremely cultured and loving human being who adopted children out of the kindness of his heart.’
Coates, the same judge who convicted her husband, ultimately sentenced her to 10 years’ probation on the child abuse charge and ordered her to serve two concurrent five-year probation terms on the other two charges.
He was also ordered to pay a $2,000 fine, undergo a mental health evaluation, complete 300 hours of community service and serve a year of house arrest.
The judge also rescinded his right to possess a firearm and said he would not be able to vote until after his probation and fine is paid in full.
Additionally, Tracy will have to take anger management and parenting classes, and is prohibited from having any contact with the victim, who is now in foster care along with her other children.
If he violates any of the terms of his probation, Tracy would face at least 75 months in prison with the possibility of more time if he has another run-in with the law within five years.
But Tracy is now planning to move to Chicago to start a new life, and Coates agreed to allow his attorneys to file a motion to transfer his probation to Cook County, Illinois.