A white couple has actually been sentenced in West Virginia to serve over a a century in jail each after they were discovered to have actually treated their 5 embraced black kids as servants on their farms.
Jeanne Kay Whitefeather, 63, was sentenced Wednesday to 215 years in jail and her 64-year-old hubby Donald Lantz got a sentence of 160 years. The couple dealt with many charges, consisting of however not restricted to human trafficking, kid disregard, and required labor.
Whitefeather and Lantz were likewise purchased to pay $280,000 in restitution to the victims.
” You brought these kids to West Virginia, a location as I called practically paradise and put them in hell,” Circuit Court Judge MaryClaire Akers stated after the sentencing, according to NBC affiliate WSAZ. “The court will now put you in yours. May God have grace on your souls, since this court will not.”
The kids were embraced from a shelter in Minnesota however later on relocated to Washington State in 2018 and Virginia in 2023.
The conditions the kids went through do
The kids’s treatment was found after cops performed a well-being check following reports from a next-door neighbor that they had actually experienced a teenage woman and young kid being secured a shed.
The constable’s department stated that the kids were found in unclean conditions, without any running water or restroom and had actually been denied of food. They had actually been required to sleep on cold concrete and had actually remained in the shed for 12 hours at the time of the constable’s discovery.
A 14-year-old was later on found with unclean clothing and no shoes with sores on his feet.
The kids were just fed peanut butter sandwiches, according to the New York City Times
The couple, according to the indictment, targeted the kids since of their race and made them perform forced overdue labor.
In spite of the abuse, Whitefeather informed the kids in court that she did like them, according to WSAZ.
” I simply desire the court to understand that I have actually made errors I am really sorry for that and I like my kids and I have never ever, ever, done anything to my … kids to damage them purposefully,” she stated. “Kid, I do like you.”
Throughout the trial, the defense argued the couple were overwhelmed with the kids’s psychological health concerns, and attempted to look for assistance, along with the injury related to the abuse from the kids’s biological home, The Associated Press reported.
John J. Balenovich, Lantz’s attorney, stated in an interview on Wednesday that his customer “preserves his innocence regarding the charges” and is thinking about an appeal, the New york city Times reported.
Whitefeather’s attorney Mark Components acknowledged that the couple made bad parenting options however asserted that the kids were not kept as servants.
” These are farm individuals that do farm tasks,” Plants stated, according to the Associated Press. “It wasn’t about race. It wasn’t about required labor.”
District attorneys apparently stated that the kids had actually been required to perform manual labour consisting of pulling lawn by hand and bring pails up and down a hill.
The teenage victim explained the embraced moms and dads as “beasts” in an effect declaration.
A 2nd kid informed the courts that in spite of the abuse, “I will be something remarkable. I will be strong and stunning. You will constantly be precisely what you are: awful.”
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