New details after 16 children rescued from ‘deplorable’ Ohio home – THE TRUE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE MOTHER AND GRANDFATHER IS SHOCKING.

New details after 16 children rescued from ‘deplorable’ Ohio home – THE TRUE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE MOTHER AND GRANDFATHER IS SHOCKING.

You’re watching live now. My name is Alexander Goldberg and more today on the House of Horrors in rural Ohio. And still lingering questions about how 16 children ages 18 months old to 18 years old were living in deplorable conditions. Authorities say 16 children from the same family were rescued from a dilapidated home, living in human waste all around them and confined to just one room over much of the past four years.

The children’s parents and two grandparents were charged with felony child endangerment. Gary Cers Jr., Gary Cers senior, Christina Cers, and Elizabeth Siders pled not guilty in court. Joining us now to discuss is defense attorney Jeremy Rosenthal. Jeremy, thank you so much for coming on live now. >> Thank you, Alexander. Good to see you.

>> You too. So, these adults were accused of secondderee felony child endangerment. Tell us about these charges. >> Okay. Uh child endangerment is what you would call an encoit crime. And for firstear law students, what you learn about is that crimes happen really one of two ways.

 Most crimes are intentional crimes, things that we do on purpose. Uh if somebody robs a bank, somebody robs a gas station, somebody assaults another person, those are going to be intentional crimes, and they’re going to require what are what’s called a mental state. An enco crime is a clim is a crime of omission. you failed to do something and because you failed to do something there was a negative result.

Uh parents owe a duty to children. Uh it it’s fairly simple. Uh and and when a parent fails in their duty and exposes children to danger or extreme danger um and causes injury and causes this type of neglect, then it can be sort of criminalized. Um and and the statute is sort of broad and it expands to include people who are what it or what it called in loco parents and essentially that means in place of the parent.

 So a parent a guardian somebody who owes a special duty to a child or it could be an adult or it could be somebody who’s disabled. That’s how incoet crimes work. >> And of course all are innocent until proven guilty. But looking at these charges, what would a penalty look like if there was a guilty conviction? >> Uh, because it’s not an intent crime, it doesn’t really hit the higher uh rungs of of criminal punishment.

 What what it could be is you’re looking at somewhere between uh 8 and 12 years is is what I’ve seen uh under the Ohio statutes. Um and and so uh in in those instances, Ohio has some different sentencing factors which could potentially increase things. Uh but it’s really hard. Uh you you’ve got 16 children who are injured, clearly mentally injured, clearly physically injured, atrophied, and and everything we’ve read about is just is is just as tragic as it can be.

 And it’s really difficult to link those to any type of an intentional act. If you could, then you could definitely have a higher punishment here. Uh, in in these instances as it is, you might be looking at 10 years, 12 years, something in that range per per case. >> Well, does the law treat parents differently than grandparents? >> Um, yes and no.

 So, again, what we turn to is what is your relationship with that child? Um, in the abstract, a grandparent may really not have a duty to their grandchild. Uh, now if you’re living with a child, yes, you you certainly would. Um, and if you are in again what you would call in loco parent, then yes, you would uh have a duty to that child.

 So, in those instances, it doesn’t matter that you’re a parent, grandparent, aunt, uncle, or anybody like that. If you’re the guardian and you’re the main caregiver for a child or or within a group of caregivers, then you are certainly uh within that group, then then you’re certainly going to be culpable. And then punishment wise, the law is not really going to make a distinction whether or not you were the biological parent or whether you were a grandparent.

 Uh I I don’t know that anybody’s going to be able to to avoid liability here uh because they they might be a generation removed uh based on the conditions that everybody’s heard about and that we’ve we’ve seen. Uh liability is is pretty clear here. >> I see. And officials said it seemed as no one outside of the family knew about these children.

 Uh, how will interviews with neighbors and the public come into play as investigators continue this discovery process? >> I think what we’re seeing here is uh that there’s a blind spot in the system. Uh the system is designed uh to sort of have trip wires, if you will. Children come to school malnourished. They come to school bruised.

 uh children outcry abuse to people who they trust uh who may be outside the home. Uh people go to the hospital, they have to go to the grocery store. Uh and and and and so we all sort of live in these these webs of of society and and there’s these trip wires that that that really don’t get triggered if everybody’s just in the same house all day every day.

 Um there there’s no real exposure to the outside world. Um, so what we’re seeing is that the neighbors didn’t see or hear anything. Uh, which wouldn’t be surprising. Uh, my understanding is is this family moved around uh quite a bit. Uh, maybe that’s on purpose to avoid detection. Uh, maybe that’s just sort of their their nomadic nature.

 Um, but they just had very little exposure to the outside world and and just didn’t really hit a lot of those trip wires. >> Right. I think you’re alluding to in schools mandated reporters and I wanted to mention here these 16 children they were not enrolled in school. I want to move on to our last question here. We know that authorities found the children while carrying out a search warrant in a separate unrelated investigation.

 Will all of the evidence that they discovered on Wednesday, will it all be admissible in court? >> Provided the original search warrant was valid, then yes. uh anything and everything that they find um are is and are going to be admissible in court. A good search warrant allows for expansion of investigation into different areas and and so that’s very common to see uh that that a that a search warrant allows police to get into a house um and that they can search anywhere where the contraband that they may be looking for

could possibly be. Uh so that that’s going to include rooms, other spaces, but once the police are in in an area lawfully, anything and everything that they discover um through their lawful search is is fair game. Uh so uh and and that that would be now where where you could run into a problem and I and I don’t see it happening here is I if you had some type of cyber evidence or phone evidence or things like that uh you would need additional warrants to sort of breach those spaces, but that doesn’t sound like it’s necessary here. Uh the

the example that you give in law school is uh for a car that gets pulled over uh and then if there’s a search uh that that’s lawful of an automobile, say maybe there’s drugs that are detected or smelled or something like that and they find a dead body, uh then that’s per that’s fair game. The the the investigation can expand into those areas.

 All right, defense attorney Jeremy Rosenthal, we thank you so much for coming on live now with your explanation of how the law works and helping us understand a little bit more about this case. >> Had a have a good evening and have a good weekend. >> All right, and we do want to play out a short sound bite from authorities speaking in Ohio yesterday.

 Take a listen. >> Defendants were arraigned on 16 counts of fel of seconddegree felony non uh child endangering. They were assessed a $300,000 cash assurity bond per defendant. They were ordered to have no contact with each other as codefendants. They were ordered to have no contact with the victims.

 Uh they we believe will be requesting courtappointed counsel and will anticipate getting ready for the next stage which at this point would be a preliminary hearing if they request that or if uh they don’t wave it. and uh that’ll be with their council. Right now, uh the abuse neglect dependency complaints that have been filed are being heard by the Venton County Juvenile and Probate Court.

 Uh the initial hearing occurring now. Uh we are asking for temporary custody uh to job and family services. The children are safe. They are in they have been placed. uh we have uh some other issues we’re still dealing with for their safety, but they are uh currently in a good situation and and are being protected.

 The last thing I want to mention very quickly uh particularly for our local community folks is this is an intrafamily situation. This is not human trafficking. There there is nothing to put our other children at risk. This has clearly involved a multi-generational family in a very limited situation. We know the early reports came out that some of this might be going on, but we want to assure the public that their children in Vitten County are safe and uh they do not have to worry about these defendants.

>> All right, here on Live Now from Fox, let’s now be joined by Darcy Olsen, CEO and founder of the Center for the Rights of Abused Children to discuss further. Darcy, how could this go unnoticed for so many years? >> That’s the question that everyone is asking. And I have to think that over the next few weeks, as more and more people come forward, what we’re going to learn is that people did see they did observe the children in different situations and just didn’t make that phone call. So there there was an

employee at a local store who said, you know, the children I’d see a child almost every night coming in and they were super super skinny and their hair was always over their face and the parent didn’t, you know, the parents didn’t let them talk to anyone. When you see something like that that just is so extraordinarily um um you know that gives you that feeling like this is not normal and this child is too thin.

 those that’s that’s when you make that phone call. And I think what happened is that when these children were observed, those phone calls weren’t made. And so it’s just critically important if you think you’re seeing something, say something and then let the police do the investigation. >> Really devastating. Darcy, what does justice for the for these children look like? Well, we’re all looking for uh some glimmer of hope in this situation and I think the fact that these 16 children are still alive um is something that everyone is holding on to uh and that

the four perpetrators or alleged perpetrators are behind bars. You know, I I think like most people out there, I don’t know that there could ever be justice in a in a situation like this. Um uh but I mean the the the the law will carry out the law and they’ll be prosecuted, but the children, will the children ever recover? And I mean that’s the bigger question.

 Will they have justice? Will they have normal lives? What’s next for them? And I think we have to really resist that fairy tale rescue idea because we know that when children are neglected for this many years that sometimes they may never be verbal. sometimes they’re never able to care for themselves. And so we can hope for the best, fight for the best, pray for the best, uh but also uh be realistic about uh the consequences of this kind of neglect going unreported and unnoticed.

>> Absolutely. And I do want to talk about uh shelter and how these children can at least start to get on a path to some sense of normaly. I know you do a lot of great work at the center. So hopefully you can help us understand some details about the child welfare system. We know that child welfare officials have temporary custody of the 16 children.

When could they be in a safe even permanent living situation and do you think all 16 of them can stay together? >> So each child is going to be different, right? One child was intubated, a few are out of the hospital. So they’re in really different um situations as far as their physical health and the same will be emotionally uh behaviorally um mentally and so uh the the first thing is they have to make sure that the child is physically safe and then they have to see what their capabilities are and then they have to assess what’s

going to be best for that child. So for some of them they might be able to be with a sibling or two or three. uh some may end up having to be in therapeutic hospitals or psychiatric wards. Uh and so it’s just it’s one of those things that will unfold. And I want to say it’s critically important that the authorities in the child welfare system that they run all of the background checks that they do the criminal um uh fingerprinting and so forth.

 when the when the Turpin children were found in in California, it was a very similar horrific situation and several of those children were put into a home where they were reabused and because they they hadn’t vetted the home carefully enough. And so it’s just so critical to make sure every step of the way that these children are with the safest people who have been vetted uh and that and that they only have the best care from now on.

 And that’s going to give them the best chances for recovery. >> Absolutely. And as you mentioned, a couple of them are getting medically evaluated. After that, what does that path to normaly look like? Uh enrolling in schools, sort of reintegrating into life. Talk to us a little bit about that. Well, in 2005, there was a little girl uh called the girl in the window and she was known as Danny Crockett at the time and she was adopted into a really loving home and 10 years later she was still preverbal.

 She couldn’t take care of herself and she actually has to live full-time with caretakers in an institution. and her adoptive father says it’s just so so heartbreaking because you know she’s it you know she’s got a 25 year old body and and kind of a 2-year-old mentality and so this was a child who had had neglect for for six years and and those windows for development seemed to have closed.

 So um even even despite the best care and all the love and therapy that she had. So that that situation can happen. But we’ve also seen children who can who have been resilient and recovered from situations after 10 years or 15 years of enduring things that you know we we don’t even have the words we don’t even have the words for.

 So anything is possible. And it’s just, you know, I I I want to express uh my gratitude for the first responders who went in there and accompanied these children to the hospital and the caretakers who were there holding their hands and trying to communicate with them. And and those folks uh are going to live um and be haunted uh by these children forever.

And I think I speak on behalf of the nation that we’re so grateful that people do this for children and families um every day across America. We’re we’re grateful to them and it’s it’s because of good people like that and and the good homes and the good care that they’re going to get that that these children will have uh will have hope for a brighter future.

>> Absolutely. Well, let’s wrap up. Tell us about the Center for the Rights uh for abused children and how you guys help in scenarios similar to these. >> Thank you. Well, I fostered 10 children and adopted four and that’s how I ended up starting the Center for the Rights of Abused Children because I realized that, you know, we always think of children’s physical safety that that that’s all we have to be concerned with.

 And I realize sometimes when they go into the system, they’re still not safe and and the laws are still not there to be protective of them. So, we have proono attorneys who work for free, who take children’s cases all over the country when they’re in these terrible situations, and often they have no one to represent them or fight for their rights in court.

 And so, we stand in for them and then we try to shape policies to to to make it better for children. So, for instance, there are actually people who are trying to get rid of mandatory reporting. So, right now, if you see abuse, you’re supposed to call that in. Uh, and there are people who think that’s a, you know, not a good idea and that people shouldn’t have to make those phone calls.

 And we’re going to advocate that those calls need to be made because children can’t fight for themselves and they can’t make those calls themselves. And so, it’s up to us as a community uh, to step in and rescue. And then, as I said before, let police do their job, let them do the investigating, but if you suspect something or you’re suspicious of something, please always always speak up to authorities.

 All right, Darcy Olsen, thank you so much for coming on live now from Fox. We appreciate your time. >> Thank you.