A Florida couple — including a woman who authored children’s books — has pleaded guilty to abusing their adopted children inclduing spanking them until they bled and making them sleep on wet beds.
Jennifer and Joseph Wolfthal pleaded guilty to aggravated child abuse and neglect of a child with great bodily harm on January 13. The couple was set to go to trial on Monday, but they reached a plea agreement with prosecutors just before the trial began, according to WESH.
Prosecutors agreed to drop three counts of kidnapping brought against the couple in exchange for their plea.
Jennifer Wolfthal — the author of a children’s book titled A Real Friend — is set to be sentenced to 12 years in prison, and her husband faces a 10-year sentence, according to the plea deal. The two faced more than 100 years in prison if convicted.
“This plea and sentencing agreement ensures that the Wolfthals will spend significant time in prison while it protects the already-traumatized victims from the stress of having to testify,” the State Attorney’s office in Florida’s 18th judicial circuit said in a statement reported by PEOPLE. “The State Attorney’s office made sure law enforcement and the children’s new guardian supported this sentence before it agreed to it.”
Jennifer Wolfthal and Joseph Wolfthal pleaded guilty to charges that they abused their adopted children at their home in Florida (Seminole County Sheriff’s Office)
The couple was arrested on New Year’s Day 2021 after Joseph took their eight-year-old daughter to the hospital. The girl was diagnosed with pneumonia, a staph infection, and liver and kidney failure, according to WFTV.
In addition to her diagnosis, she was also malnourished, was suffering from multiple bruises, and had several open wounds. The young girl weighed just 40 pounds when she was brought to the hospital.
Joseph told police that the girl’s injuries were the result of falls and “brushing her teeth too hard.”
The child’s condition was enough for police to arrest the parents on suspicion of neglect and abuse.
Jennifer made bail, but was arrested later in January on charges of false imprisonment of a child under the age of 13, according to PEOPLE.
According to police interviews with the children, their parents sometimes doused their beds with cold water and forced them to sleep in them overnight (Seminole County Sheriff’s Office)
The children told police their parents would take turns smacking them, hitting them to the point that they bled. They also claimed they weren’t allowed to bathe for months at a time, and that they were not given enough food, the Orlando Sentinel reports.
According to police interviews with the children, their parents sometimes doused their beds with cold water and forced them to sleep in them overnight.
The children said they were often hit with a “wacker,” which was described as an oblong object covered with cloth, police said at the time of the arrest.
Punishments of the kids happened nearly every night, they reported, and they also included exercises and writing sentences. When police searched the home, they found more than 1,100 written notes that said “My body stays flat on the bed at all times. I was never given permission to move or say anything else. Now I get to write about this along with everything else. I’m a fool.”
The Wolfthals adopted the children in 2014, according to a divorce filing seen by WFTV. The children now live with another family.