"Jane" Chritton - 15 yo (2/12) - / Convicted: Father, Chad G. Chritton, stepmother Melinda J. Drabek-Chritton and step brother Joshua Drabek - Madison, WI

Wisconsin prosecutors are expected to play a video in court Tuesday
that shows an emaciated 15-year-old girl telling police her father and
stepmother kept her in a basement for years and starved her, leaving her
to fend for herself off scraps she found on the floor or in the
garbage.
It will be the first public glimpse of the Madison teen, who has been
in Dane County’s custody since a passing motorist spotted her last
month weighing only 70 pounds, crying and walking barefoot in pajamas
outside in the cold. She was so small the man mistook her for an
8-year-old.The parents have a preliminary hearing scheduled, and the
video is likely to be a part of it.

A judge will use the hearing Tuesday to decide whether there’s enough
evidence to order a trial. The 40-year-old father and 42-year-old
stepmother are charged with child abuse, child neglect and reckless
endangerment.The girl’s 18-year-old stepbrother is charged with child
abuse and sexual assault for allegedly forcing her to perform oral sex
on him repeatedly. His arraignment is set for March 19.

State officials are investigating how Dane County child welfare
officials handled complaints about the family.The Associated Press isn’t
naming any of the defendants to avoid identifying the girl. The AP does
not usually name victims of sexual assault.The county Department of
Human Services has declined to provide updates on her condition.

Director Lynn Green has only said that the girl is “safe and loved
and being very well-cared for.”Dane County District Attorney Ismael
Ozanne declined comment. A doctor who examined the girl described her as
malnourished and “chronically starved,” and said the teen remains at
risk of metabolic disorders or complications that could be
fatal.Videotaped testimony by a child can be admissible in court under
limited circumstances, including cases of certain types of abuse.

However, while the recording might be allowed for the preliminary
hearing, the girl most likely will have to take the stand if the case
advances to trial, said Stephen Meyer, a criminal defense lawyer who’s
not involved in this case.”The right for the accused to face the
accusers is a very guarded principle in American justice,” he said.

The girl has told investigators she was forced to survive by eating
scraps from the floor or garbage can. She said she wasn’t allowed to go
to school or have friends, and that she was kept in a locked basement
that was monitored with cameras and outfitted with an alarm and motion
detector.However, investigators said she also told them “there was
plenty of food in her house and she chose not to eat,” according to the
criminal complaint. She added that she was allowed to eat oatmeal and
peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, but that she ate out of the trash or
off the floor so she wouldn’t set off the alarm.

The stepmother’s attorney, Thomas J. McClure, said he’ll emphasize
whether there was actual and intentional harm or neglect, and address
the girl’s medical and psychological history.”The state’s version is
both contradictory and untested,” he told the AP. “There is evidently
much more to be learned.”William J. Hayes, the father’s attorney,
declined comment.

The father has requested that he not have to attend any of his court
hearings. Judge Amy Smith didn’t rule on his request during a March 2
hearing, when she declined to lower the man’s bail from $22,500 and his
wife’s from $30,000.
http://fox6now.com/2012/03/13/wis-prosecutor-expected-to-show-video-of-starved-teen-at-parents-preliminary-hearing/

A preliminary hearing for a couple accused of abusing a
15-year-old girl and keeping her confined to a basement for years ended
Tuesday without any evidence being presented, but it will resume on
Friday with testimony from a child abuse expert.

Dane County District Attorney Ismael Ozanne was to
present a video recorded interview with the girl in lieu of her live
testimony. But Circuit Judge Amy Smith, after ruling the video was
admissible, said it was not necessary to show it again in court because
she had already viewed the entire two-hour interview and it is up to her
alone to determine probable cause in the case.

The hearing, which will determine whether there is enough
evidence to order the girl's father, Chad Chritton, 40, and stepmother,
Melinda Drabek-Chritton, 42, to stand trial on reckless endangerment,
child abuse and child neglect charges, will resume Friday with testimony
from Dr. Barbara Knox, a child abuse expert at American Family Children's Hospital.

At the hearing, Smith threw out subpoenas issued by the
defense attorneys seeking medical records and testimony from doctors who
have examined the girl, calling them impermissible at this stage in the
case. She also said that some of the subpoenas, in particular one
seeking testimony from Lynn Green, director of the Dane County
Department of Human Services, were issued too late.

Chritton's lawyer, William Hayes, also protested the
playing of the video interview with the girl in lieu of her live
testimony because his client has a constitutional right to cross-examine
her. Smith said that state law differs on that point and allows child
witnesses to present their testimony by video recording.

The video, later released to reporters, showed the girl,
dressed in a pink hoodie and clutching a teddy bear she called Cocoa
Bean, talking about the alleged abuse she suffered over the past five years.

The girl, interviewed at Safe Harbor by Madison police
Detective Maya Krajcinovic, appears thin under her baggy clothing,
looking much smaller than most 15-year-olds and speaking in a soft,
hoarse voice that sounds like that of a much younger girl.

During the hearing, Smith said that at times during the
video, the girl blamed herself for what happened. She said she wasn't
believed when she told her parents about sexual abuse by her
stepbrother, Joshua Drabek, who is now charged with two counts of child
sexual assault and child abuse.

Smith said the girl appears to have symptoms of
post-traumatic stress disorder and cried at times during the interview,
saying "I don't want to go back. I can't take it anymore."

Read more: http://host.madison.com/wsj/news/local/crime_and_courts/preliminary-hearing-to-resume-friday-for-family-accused-of-keeping/article_0ebd59ae-6ca0-11e1-b049-0019bb2963f4.html#ixzz1p3Tfm9R3

Three neighbors of a 15-year-old girl said they notified child
welfare authorities over many years that they suspected abuse, but
nobody acted to protect her until a month ago when a passer-by found her
- barefoot and in her pajamas - wandering about a quarter of a mile
from her home.

In a video released Tuesday, the girl tells police, in a whisper,
shocking details about how she was starved, beaten, imprisoned and
sexually assaulted by family members for years in the basement of a
house supposedly visited a number of times by both child welfare
officials and probation officers.


According to state Department of Children and Families records, Dane
County protective services received seven reports concerning the girl's
family dating to May 1997. The girl has two younger half-both ers, and
it is unclear from the records which of the reports to protective
services specifically concerned the teen.


All three neighbors agreed they never received a response from social services representatives.


"As far as I know, there was no follow-up," said Mark Stuntebeck, who
lives next to the family in a well-cared-for subdivision of modest
homes on the southeast side of the city.


Stuntebeck said he called the Dane County Department of Human
Services after he saw the girl forage through garbage bags for food and
shovel snow from the family's driveway wearing little more than pajamas.
He was unsure when he made the report.


Another neighbor, who asked not to be identified, said she had twice called child protective services within the last two years.


"Something about the girl did not seem right," the woman said.


Marsha Clark, a former Stoughton police detective who has retired to
Florida, was visiting her daughter, who lives across the street from the
girl, when she called protective services in April 2011.


"I expected a call back," she said. "I've worked with Dane County protective services. But I never heard another word. Nothing."


The Department of Children and Families' Division of Safety and
Permanence is in the process of reviewing Dane County's handling of the
case.


The video, released Tuesday after the Journal Sentinel objected to a
motion by prosecutors and defense attorneys to have it sealed from the
public, was introduced during a preliminary hearing for the girl's
parents.


In the video, the girl speaks softly to a Madison detective about her ordeal.


She is tiny, with straight black hair and dark eyes. She is wearing a
pink hooded sweat shirt and clutches a floppy-eared stuffed animal. She
consumes cough drops and sips from a cup, and her voice is raspy.


What she says is shocking:


She tells the detectives that she has been restricted to the house's basement, rarely let out except to do chores.


Sometimes, she says, she was forced to do chores naked "to make sure I don't hide things in my clothes."


"I like to hide food in my clothes," she tells the detective. " 'Cause I'm hungry."


"I eat off the floor," the girl says. "I also find food in the laundry."


She tells the detective that she slept on a broken bed with no
pillow. Her one toy had been taken away. The windows were sealed, and an
alarm had been placed on the basement door.


There were no bathroom facilities, just a utility sink without warm
water, the girl says. Containers were set out for her to use when she
needed to use the bathroom.


The detective asks what would happen if she missed the containers.


"If I don't get it, they will make me eat it," she says.


"Or drink it or rub it on my face."


In a complaint charging both parents with first-degree reckless
endangerment, intentional child abuse and child neglect, a pediatrician
specializing in child abuse tells police that the child is suffering
from serial child torture, persistent starvation, isolation,
terrorization, physical abuse, sexual abuse, child neglect and symptoms
of post-traumatic stress disorder.


According to a criminal complaint:


Dane County human services "did receive information in 2007 that
sometime around Christmas 2006, (the girl) disclosed to (her stepmother
and father that her stepbrother) was doing 'sexual things' to her,' "
the complaint says.


On March 30, 2007, child protective services worker Judy Phelps met
with the girl at Glendale Elementary School, where the girl had told a
counselor that her stepbrother was "touching her," the complaint says.


The girl would not tell Phelps or a Madison police officer what had happened.


Phelps, the complaint says, met with the girl's father and
stepmother, "who refused to allow her or the police access to (the
stepbrother), the complaint says.


The parents "retained an attorney and refused to sign any releases
allowing DHS to further investigate this matter," the complaint says.


The school contacted human services "numerous times between April 3
and April 26, 2007, to discuss concern for (the girl) and her refusal to
get off the school bus."


"The counselor tried to meet with (the father and stepmother) but was not allowed in the home," the complaint says.


"When told (the girl) was afraid to return home, (the stepmother)
said she would be afraid to come home if she had told a 'whopping lie,'"
the complaint says.


The father later told police that he and his wife decided to remove
the girl from Glendale and to home-school her "because a social worker
there had bribed (the girl) with food from McDonald's," the complaint
says.
The preliminary hearing is expected to continue Friday afternoon before Dane County Circuit Judge Amy Smith.
http://www.jsonline.com/news/crime/papers-objection-delays-hearing-in-madison-child-abuse-case-t14i8p2-142487045.html

I sure hope these ANIMALS (geez, that's an insult to all animals) are locked in a cage for the rest of their pathetic lives. how can anyone defend them?

THOSE PIGS SHOULD BE EXECUTED.

I agree with So_cal and Twink. Those 3 abusers are subhuman and should be put in cages for the rest of their lives.

A stepmother charged with child abuse in
connection to her teenage stepdaughter's starvation and serial torture is trying
to keep her two younger children from being placed in another home.
At a juvenile court hearing Wednesday, Melinda Drabek-Chritton denied her two younger children were in
need of protective services.

Drabek-Chritton and her husband, Chad Chritton face
several felony charges for allegedly denying Chritton's 15-year old daughter
food and largely confining her to the family home's basement for years.
Authorities said a basement alarm system was used to monitor the girl's
whereabouts.

Dane County Judge Shelley Gaylord scheduled future
hearings to determine the placement of Drabek-Chritton's two younger children,
and Chritton's 15-year-old daughter.

The teenager's attorney indicated the girl is currently in
a foster home.

Drabek-Chritton's oldest child, 18-year-old Joshua Drabek
is charged with the alleged, repeated sexual assault of his younger
stepsister.
http://www.wqow.com/story/17212657/stepmother-of-starved-teen-fights-to-keep-other-children

On a snowy day in early January 2011, shortly before 4 p.m., a woman
driving through a subdivision on Madison's southeast side saw something
disturbing.


A girl. Thin. Dark hair and dark eyes. Standing on a porch. Very cold. Bare feet turned purple.


The woman asked if she needed help. The girl remained silent.


A woman came out of the house and took the girl inside, into what
police now describe as a kind of torture chamber, a place where,
according to a criminal complaint filed in February, the girl was
beaten, starved, sexually abused and forced to eat her own excrement.


The complaint charges the girl's father and stepmother with reckless
endangerment, child abuse and child neglect, and charges her stepbrother
with sexual assault and child abuse.


The Journal Sentinel is not naming members of the girl's family in
order to protect her identity. The father, stepmother and step brother
are scheduled for arraignment April 16 in Dane County Circuit Court.


The incident in January 2011 has come to light because of a Journal
Sentinel request for all reports and records regarding the girl and her
family. The 27 documents that were released go back as far as 1980.


In responding to the Journal Sentinel's request, the Madison Police
Department excluded all items that are part of its current investigation
of the girl's alleged abuse, which means that the documents do not
include the harrowing allegations that are now part of the ongoing court
case.


But they do show a pattern of problems in the girl's family dating
back years and demonstrate yet another case in which officials were
warned that the girl was in trouble but failed to help her.


Two days after the brief 2011 encounter with the girl, the woman - troubled by what she saw - called the police.


The woman "wishes she had called that day," according to police records, "but thinks welfare should be checked."


Two officers, Carlin Becker and Mary Chavala, went to the house.


They knocked on the door and rang the bell. Nobody answered. After 7 minutes 48 seconds, they left.


That was the extent of their investigation.


They did not talk neighbors, who might have told them - as they did
the Journal Sentinel - that they had seen the girl barely dressed and
shoveling snow. Some had seen her foraging through garbage for food. One
said she never appeared happy, that she was treated like a slave.


Police did not contact Dane County child protective services, who
might have told them that, by that date, the agency had received six
calls concerning the family.


"Based on what facts were given to the officers, we believe they
acted appropriately," Madison Police Capt. Sue Williams said last week.
"There is nothing to indicate more should have been done."


More than a year would pass before the girl would again be noticed by
a passer-by, Mike Vega. She was wandering several blocks from the
house, barefoot, wearing nothing but pajamas. The girl told Vega she
needed help. Vega called police.


Shortly after Vega found the girl, the Madison Police Department
released a statement acknowledging it had received "prior calls
regarding members of (her) family."


"One case, in 2007, involved the girl," the statement said.


In that case, "an unnamed party alleged the girl may have been
molested by a family member," the statement said. "The girl did not
corroborate the allegation during an investigation by the MPD."


The police statement did not mention the 2011 call.

History of problems



The girl moved from her mother's home in Texas and came to Wisconsin to live with her father sometime in 2006, records show.


Several of the oldest documents that were released concern
disturbances and domestic abuse reports that involve the girl's future
stepmother and a boyfriend, the father of the future stepbrother charged
with sexual assault.


In a report dated September 1991, the 21-year-old stepmother, then
six months pregnant, tells police who were called to her parents' home
that her boyfriend slapped and choked her. He denies the allegations but
is arrested. The woman tells police the boyfriend has punched her
several times in the past.


It is unclear how long the couple's on-again, off-again relationship
lasted. The last domestic report, in which the man refuses to leave her
apartment, is dated April 1998, and refers to him as her ex-boyfriend.


The records document 10 visits by police to the home while the girl
lived there. Only the 2007 molestation allegation and the January 2011
call by the worried passer-by specifically concerned the girl.


Most of the reports that brought police to the girl's home involved her stepbrother.


On Sept. 15, 2009, police went to the home to recover a runaway juvenile girl.


The runaway told a police officer "that her boyfriend lives at this
house and that she had been staying with her boyfriend and his family."


While the age of the runaway is unclear, the stepbrother was a few
weeks shy of his 16th birthday. According to a criminal complaint in the
current case, he already had sexually assaulted his stepsister, who
would at that time have been 12.


In November 2011, in an unrelated matter, the now-18-year-old
stepbrother pleaded no contest to intentionally contributing to the
delinquency of a child and two counts of fourth-degree sexual assault
involving a 13-year-old girl.


As a condition of his probation, he was ordered to undergo sex
offender treatment and to have no unsupervised contact with female
juveniles.


The state Department of Corrections has acknowledged state probation
officers made three visits to the home, the last on Jan. 19, less than a
month before the stepbrother would be charged with sexually assaulting
the girl.


***

Visits by police



Madison police visited the home of the girl they now say was being
tortured, starved and sexually abused by family members at least nine
times before the teen was rescued, according to records recently
released. They met with the girl once at her school.


March 30, 2007: Police speak with the girl at her elementary
school after girl reportedly tells school counselor she is being
sexually abused by her stepbrother. Girl refuses to cooperate with
police.


June 13, 2007: Police dispatched to home. No report filed.


Feb. 13, 2009: Stepmother calls police to home because someone won't return stepbrother's iPod.


Sept. 15, 2009: Police sent to the home to retrieve a juvenile girl. She is returned to her father.


June 28, 2010: Stepmother calls police to home because the
stepbrother has an odd text on his phone and threats on Facebook.
Stepbrother is not home and ignores police request to call.


July 9, 2010: Police sent to retrieve a 14-year-old boy whose mother said had run away from home. Police found no one home.


July 11, 2010: Father calls police to home because the
stepbrother has destroyed his room, reportedly because his mother took
away his phone. The stepbrother is released to the custody of his
parents.


Aug. 26, 2010: Police sent after someone reports teens in the backyard talking about drugs. Police find no one.


Jan. 13, 2011: Passer-by calls police to home after seeing barefoot girl on porch.


Aug. 28, 2011: Police dispatched to home. No report filed.
http://www.jsonline.com/news/crime/police-had-warnings-about-tortured-girl-records-show-rv4pcau-145462665.html

State probation agents who conducted home visits at a
Madison residence where authorities say a 15-year-old girl was starved
and abused never saw the girl and did not go into the basement where she
allegedly was forced to stay, though her stepmother showed the agents
an alarm on the basement door she said was for protection because the
girl was severely autistic, according to state records.
The girl's stepmother and father, Melinda
Drabek-Chritton, 42, and Chad G. Chritton, 40, are charged with
first-degree recklessly endangering safety, child abuse and neglect. Her
stepbrother, Joshua P. Drabek, 18, is charged with two counts of child
sexual assault and child abuse.
According to a criminal complaint, the girl, who weighed
about 70 pounds, had been locked in the basement since she was 9 years
old and told police she scavenged food from the garbage, the floor and
the dirty laundry. A child abuse expert said the girl had experienced "serial torture."
Lance Wiersma, a region chief of the Department of
Corrections' Division of Community Corrections, said Wednesday that
agents had no information indicating that the girl was locked in the
basement or being abused, and that Drabek-Chritton's explanation of the
girl's medical condition and the need for the alarm seemed plausible at the time.
Corrections spokesman Tim Le Monds said the department
has conducted a formal review and full audit of the case and found that
no work rules were violated, and no employees have been disciplined.
Between mid-December and early February — when the girl
was found outside in pajamas and bare feet — agents made three visits to
the family's Southeast Side home, where Drabek was living while on
probation for having a sexual relationship with a 13-year-old girl in Deerfield.
According to a March 15 email to Wiersma from supervisor
Nicole Raisbeck, "The agents only inspected Josh's bedroom and common
areas located in the house."
The email was among records requested by the State
Journal that the DOC released Wednesday. While the girl's name is
blacked out in the documents, it is apparent that the references are to her.
Raisbeck wrote: "During the residence assessment, Melinda
showed the agents the alarms on (Drabek's) bedroom door and the
basement door" and "demonstrated the loud noise that would result in the
(basement) door being opened. She told us the alarms were turned on
only at night for the protection of (the girl) and the family."
But Wiersma said Wednesday it was DOC's understanding
that the basement alarm was solely for the girl's protection, because of
her autism, and agents were not told she posed a danger to others. The
girl has told police she has never been diagnosed with or taken medications for autism.
Corrections spokeswoman Linda Eggert previously said
residence assessments typically include a thorough on-site inspection of
the residence and neighborhood.
But Le Monds said Wednesday, "The policy is that we
investigate common areas within the home." He said agents were told that
the basement was the girl's bedroom and "there was no reason for us to
look into the teenage girl's bedroom."
According to the records, Corrections is seeking to
revoke Drabek's probation in part for failing to act on knowledge that
the girl was being abused and starved.
A revocation summary states, "Drabek has shown he is willing to stand back
and do nothing while horrendous abuse is occurring."
Drabek "knew this was not how a normal 15-year-old girl
should look. Regarding the alarm on (the basement) door, he stated his
mother told him this was because (the girl) would come upstairs and eat
all the food," the summary states. "She then put an alarm on Mr.
Drabek's bedroom door so it would 'look better to the DOC.'"
Wiersma said it appeared to agents at the time that the
family was taking precautions to ensure Drabek did not leave the house
or go where he wasn't supposed to. The revocation summary states
Drabek-Chritton said Drabek's alarm was partly to ensure he wasn't going
to the girl's room.
Agents had no information at the time indicating there
had been any allegations of improper contact between Drabek and the
girl, Wiersma said.
According to the DOC records, Drabek did not initially
tell agents that his stepsister was living in the home, saying he
forgot. But the revocation summary states that explanation "is
suspicious and unlikely at best. At worst, it was a deceptive attempt
conceal her whereabouts altogether from his agent because of the poor
condition he knew she was in."
In a statement dated Feb. 24, weeks after the girl fled,
Drabek said he moved back into the home Nov. 15 when he was put on
probation. He said he did not know the girl was being abused and "never
saw my mom or Chad lay a hand on her.
"If I look back now, I can see that abuse was occurring,"
Drabek said, adding that his mother "would yell and scream and threaten
all the time. The day (the girl) ran away, I heard her say, 'I'll throw
you down the stairs.' That's when (the girl) ran."

Read more: http://host.madison.com/wsj/news/local/crime_and_courts/visiting-state-probation-agents-didn-t-inspect-basement-where-girl/article_da77cd06-7ebe-11e1-a44e-001a4bcf887a.html#ixzz1rB3PPQfR

A husband and wife accused of torturing and starving the man's teenage daughter are expected to enter pleas this week.
Prosecutors say the Madison couple denied the girl food and forced her
to live in the basement. They've also accused the girl's stepbrother of
sexually assaulting her.

The husband and wife are scheduled to enter pleas Monday afternoon to
charges of reckless endangerment, child abuse and child neglect. The
stepbrother is scheduled to enter pleas to a child abuse charge and two
sexual assault counts at the same proceeding.
http://kaaltv.com/article/stories/S2582432.shtml?cat=10728

A prosecutor has filed more charges against a husband and wife
accused of torturing and starving the man's teenage daughter and forcing
the girl to live in their basement.


Dane County District Attorney Ismael
Ozanne on Monday filed new felony counts of causing a child mental
harm, failing to protect a child, false imprisonment and child neglect
against both the man and woman.



They already face charges of
reckless endangerment, child abuse and child neglect. They both pleaded
not guilty to all the counts Monday afternoon.



The girl's stepbrother also has been
charged with sexually assaulting her. The Associated Press isn't naming
any of the defendants to avoid identifying the girl, who fled the
couple's home in February. A passing motorist found her on the street.

http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2012/04/17/wisconsin-teen/

What kind of pathology do people like this have to have to live this way and see NOTHING wrong? At no point should torturing another human being become comfortable. I'm not sure there will ever be a punishment severe enough to fit this crime in my eyes. IMO

The parents of a 15-year-old girl who are facing felony charges for
allegedly starving and torturing the girl and keeping her in a basement
have set up a website seeking donations from the public to pay their lawyers.

The girl's father, Chad Chritton, 41, and stepmother,
Melinda Drabek-Chritton, 42, "have been falsely accused" of abusing the
girl, the website states, and "the government wants to make Chad and his
wife felons and subject them to imprisonment."

The site contains a number of pages that argue the
couple's case and asks that as site visitors read the information they
"remember that Chad is an eight-year Army veteran who was honorably
discharged and served his country well and that neither he nor his wife
has ever been arrested before for anything."

District Attorney Ismael Ozanne said he had no comment about the site.

The girl's biological mother, Heidi Carr, said in a
statement that the website is "just an attempt by the defense to try and
lie their way out of this horrible crime."

She wrote that Chritton and Drabek-Chritton are putting the girl
"through hell by calling her crazy and a liar."

Chritton and Drabek-Chritton were arrested on Feb. 10,
four days after the girl was found walking on a street near the family's
home on Treichel Street on Madison's Far East Side, barefoot and
dressed in pajamas.

When the girl was found she weighed 82 pounds, the weight
of the average 9-year-old child, abuse expert Dr. Barbara Knox
testified at a preliminary hearing. She said that the child had suffered
"serial child torture."

The couple faces charges of reckless endangerment, child
abuse, child neglect, causing mental harm to a child, failure to protect
a child, false imprisonment and child neglect resulting in bodily harm.

The site, chadandmelindachrittonlegalfund.com,
provides medical background to argue that the girl suffers from mental
illness, has threatened in the past to kill or mutilate members of her
family and that she has admitted in the past to falsely accusing her
stepbrother, Joshua Drabek, of sexually assaulting her.

Joshua Drabek, 18, is charged with two counts of child sexual assault and child abuse.

The website states that the couple opposes child abuse
and believes abusers should be held accountable but that "teenagers lie,
and some teenagers have severe mental health problems that can account
in part for their actions."

It also states that doctors and other professionals will
"exploit someone else's misfortune for their own gain" and that the
media have been "all too willing to latch onto the government's position."

The website is registered to Chritton, who is in jail,
but the contact address and phone number on the registry are that of his
lawyer, William Hayes of Beloit. Hayes and his law office are listed on
the website as contacts and as the collectors of donations.

In a telephone interview Friday, Hayes said he only runs
one website, for his law office, and does not run any others. He
declined to discuss the content of the site, saying that he is
"apprehensive" about discussing the case and has an ethical obligation not to.

Hayes said he has filed a motion to move the case out of Dane County because of excessive pre-trial publicity.

Drabek-Chritton's lawyer, Thomas McClure, did not return a
call for comment. Joshua Drabek's lawyer, Ronald Benavides, said he was
not aware of the website.

Chritton and Drabek-Chritton are scheduled to appear in court Friday.

Read more: http://host.madison.com/wsj/news/local/crime_and_courts/parents-of-starved-teen-asking-for-donations-for-legal-defense/article_0b9537c6-9b74-11e1-b3fc-001a4bcf887a.html#ixzz1ufRu8SeL

A Madison truck driver and his wife are due back in court this week
on allegations they starved and tortured the man's 15-year-old daughter.


Dane County Circuit Judge Julie Genovese is scheduled on
Friday to hear multiple motions from attorneys representing the couple,
including requests to dismiss the cases, move the man's trial out of
Dane County and require the girl to undergo a psychological evaluation.


The couple faces a host of charges, including reckless
endangerment, child abuse and child neglect. Prosecutors also have
charged the woman's son with sexually assaulting the girl. All three of
them have pleaded not guilty. The girl told police in February her
parents forced her to live in the basement and scrounge for food.

http://www.wsaw.com/home/headlines/Wis_Couple_Accused_of_Starving_Girl_Due_in_Court_151517275.html

Wisconsin dad who starved daughter gets 5 years in jail


Published January 29, 2014

MADISON, Wis. –  A Wisconsin father convicted of abuse for starving his teenage daughter down to 68 pounds was sentenced Wednesday to five years in prison.

Before being sentenced by Dane County Circuit Judge Julie Genovese, the 42-year-old man read a statement insisting his daughter suffered from severe emotional and behavioral problems that he couldn't handle, that his job as a trucker kept him away from home and that he didn't notice how thin she had become.

"There was no master plan against my daughter," the man said, his voice breaking at times. "I was bailing water from a sinking boat with my bare hands."

The case came to light in February 2012 when the girl, then 15, ran away from her family's Madison home and was picked up by a passing motorist. The girl told investigators she had spent most of the previous five years confined to the home's basement and was denied food.

Genovese said it was clear the girl had problems and that everyone who encountered her failed her. But, she told the father, "it's your turn to accept your part in this."

"What I think you did was put your head in the sand. It's your job as a dad to see it and you didn't. Really, the buck stops with you," the judge said.

The girl also told investigators that her stepmother beat her, her stepbrother repeatedly forced her to perform oral sex on him and she was forced to eat her feces and drink her own urine.

"They made me feel like I was dehumanized a lot," the girl said in a letter to Genovese. "It's all thanks to my stupid dad and stepmom for not giving me an education and keeping me locked up for most of my life and making me feel like I was in a scary spot in my life."

The Associated Press generally doesn't name potential sexual assault victims and isn't naming anyone in the family to avoid identifying the girl.

Genovese sentenced the stepmother to five years in prison this summer after the woman pleaded no contest to reckless endangerment and causing mental harm to a child. The stepbrother is set to stand trial on sexual assault charges next month.
The father went through two trials. Jurors in March deadlocked on some charges, leading to a second proceeding in November. In all, he was convicted of child neglect, child abuse, reckless endangerment and causing mental harm to a child, all felonies. He was acquitted of false imprisonment and misdemeanor neglect.

During his November trial, the man testified he believed the girl's stepfather sexually assaulted her in Texas. After the father brought the girl to live with him in Wisconsin, she refused to eat and threatened to kill the family in their sleep, he said.

A psychologist suggested the girl live on a different level than the rest of the family, he testified, but he denied locking her in the basement. Social workers made several visits to the home, but he couldn't follow up on her care because he was always on the road. He said social workers should have removed her from the home.

The man had faced up to 28 years in prison going into Wednesday's sentencing. District Attorney Ismael Ozanne asked Genovese to give the man 10 years behind bars, saying he and his wife kept the girl isolated because they didn't want her to tell anyone she was being abused.

"The course of conduct would have ended in (the girl's) death but for her courage to run away," Ozanne said. Asked after the sentencing if he agreed with five years, he simply said he respected Genovese's decision.

The man's attorney, Jessa Nicholson, countered he deserved probation. He already has lost his family and his job, his wife is in prison and his reputation has been destroyed, she said.

"Apparently we are still a society that favors punishment," she told reporters after the hearing.

Genovese said the man deserved the same sentence as his wife. Together they stole five years of the girl's life, the judge said.



http://www.foxnews.com/us/2014/01/29/wisconsin-father-convicted-starving-daughter-locking-her-in-basement-faces/

Starved Wisconsin Teen's Stepbrother Convicted Of Sexual And Physical Abuse


 
Posted:  02/21/2014 9:22 am EST    Updated:  02/21/2014 5:59 pm EST


MADISON, Wis. (AP) — A Wisconsin man was convicted early Friday of sexually and physically abusing his stepsister, who weighed just 68 pounds and was barefoot when she fled their family's home two winters ago.

Jurors deliberated late into the night before finding the 20-year-old man guilty of first-degree sexual assault of a child, second-degree sexual assault of a child, and child abuse, the Wisconsin State Journal reported. The charges stemmed from incidents that occurred between 2006 and 2011 in the home where the then-children lived with the girl's father and his mother.

The Associated Press is not naming the young man to avoid identifying his stepsister.

After the girl ran away from home in February 2012, she was taken to a hospital where she told investigators her father and stepmother had forced her into their basement, with boarded up windows and an alarm on the door, and refused to feed her. They were convicted on child abuse charges at separate trials.

She also said her stepbrother had sexually assaulted her. Prosecutors said during the trial that the girl was 9 and her stepbrother was 13 when the first of two assaults occurred. They said the man attacked his stepsister because he didn't think he would be caught.

The man pleaded no contest to sexual assault charges in a separate case in November 2011. He also faces sexual assault charges in a case involving a third girl.

The man's defense attorney argued that the girl's story had inconsistences that should prevent jurors from believing the accusations. There was also a lack of physical evidence for the sexual assault charges, as doctors who examined the girl in 2012 said there was no evidence of sexual assault.

But jurors appeared to reject that argument. Sentencing has been scheduled for Wednesday.

The girl had a deep scar on her stomach that she said she obtained when her stepbrother pulled her from a hiding space, where she'd gone to escape the man's beating.

Assistant Dane County District Attorney Matt Moeser told jurors that the girl's father and stepmother put her into in-patient psychiatric care after she told them about the first sexual assault. Her parents later moved her into an unfinished basement and starved her, he said.

Moeser called the living conditions in the family's home the "perfect storm" for the stepbrother's sexual abuse.

Moeser said the parents' punishment of the girl, along with her mistreatment, may have explained her reluctance to tell authorities she had been sexually assaulted in the home.

When she mentioned something in school that led to a social worker to get involved, her parents sent her to live with her grandfather in Minnesota. The girl was later brought back to Madison and home-schooled, though Moeser said she didn't receive much education. She is now 17 years old and still in middle school, he said.

A school social worker became involved after the girl said something at her elementary school that led officials to believe she may have been being abused at home. The girl later told the social worker she wasn't actually sexually abused, a fact defense attorney Ronald Benavides focused on.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/21/wisconsin-starved-teen-stepbrother-convicted_n_4830665.html


Young man?  How about young POS?

They don't need to name the POSs.  We know who they are.

Father: Chad G. Chritton

Step monster: Melinda J. Drabek-Chritton

Step brother: Joshua Drabek

I am disgusted at these sentences.  These evil perverted criminals should have each received the maximum allowed.  In reality, they should all be imprisoned for LIFE.

The man pleaded no contest to sexual assault charges in a separate case in November 2011. He also faces sexual assault charges in a case involving a third girl.

How in the world did these POSa get such a light sentence?  All of these POSs should be in a cage for the rest of their lives.

For that matter, how did all of them get off so lightly?

This poor girl will never be normal.  All of these POS monsters should be imprisoned for LIFE.  Justice?  Not so far.