A Florida father locked his teenage adopted son in a boxlike structure in the garage at their family home for hours at a time, a court has heard.
Timothy Ferriter, 48, kept the youngster in the 8ft x 8ft box overnight and before and after school, often without any lights on, a jury was told.
“The defendant and his wife turned off that light and left their 14-year-old son locked in that room in the dark,” said prosecutor Brianna Coakley. “You’re going to hear over and over again that door locking.”
During her opening statement, the prosecutor said that the teenager had run away from the family’s Jupiter home in January 2022, which alerted authorities to the conditions he was being forced to live in.
“There wasn’t a bedroom for him. There weren’t his items of clothes. There weren’t his toys inside of the house,” she said.
“Instead, there was a structure – a small room, box-like structure that was constructed in the garage that didn’t have any windows. It had a box spring and a mattress, a bucket in the corner and a desk.”
Mr Ferriter is charged with aggravated child abuse, false imprisonment and an added count of child neglect.
His lawyer told the court that the boy’s parents had struggled with their son’s behavioural issues after adopting him as a toddler from an orphanage in Vietnam.
“For years, he was continuing to engage in these behaviours and would not stop,” said Pyra Murad.
The attorney told the court that the family had tried to get help from doctors, therapists and schools but nothing had improved the behaviour, reported WPTV.
“Bad parenting doesn’t make a person a criminal,” added Ms Murad.
Tim and his wife Tracy Ferriter are being tried separately but no trial date has yet been set in her case.
If convicted Mr Ferriter faces 40 years in prison after turning down a plea deal that would have seen him serve 24 months behind bars and five years of probation.
