Posted on 03/13/2003 8:03:29 PM PST by Indy Pendance
A TEXAN accused of mistreating his 11-year-old stepson has been ordered to spend 30 nights in a kennel.
US prosecutors said Curtis Lee Robin Jr whipped Zachary Weiger with a car antenna, made him sleep in a doghouse and chop wood as punishment.
The boy later recanted the doghouse allegation and Robin denied making him sleep outdoors. But Robin did not dispute the other claims.
He accepted a plea bargain that gave him a choice of 30 days in jail or 30 nights in a doghouse. He chose the doghouse so that he could continue to go to work.
Robin was to spend his first night in the 60-by-90 centimetre state-supplied kennel in his front yard today. Rain was forecast.
His lawyers argued he needed a bigger doghouse, a sleeping bag and mosquito netting.
But Judge Buddie Hahn, of Orange, Texas, said the state would provide a doghouse about the same size as the one the boy once claimed to have slept in.
Robin is allowed to sleep with either his head or feet outside, since he cannot fit all the way into the kennel.
A sheriff's deputy will patrol his home periodically each night to ensure he serves his sentence.
The deal also called for Robin to serve eight years' probation and pay a $US1,000 ($1,680) fine.
Investigators said when they first interviewed the 11-year-old in 2001 he was filthy and had mosquito bites all over his body.
Pat Anzaldi, the boy's maternal grandfather, said Robin deserved the punishment.
"I know Mr Robin is very concerned with mosquito netting and weather, but my grandson was not presented with the same treatment," he said.
The stepfather admits to whipping the boy with a car antenna but is not punished in kind.
The boy recants the accusation of sleeping in a doghouse, but the stepfather's punishment of sleeping in the doghouse continues.
The boy is punished having to chop wood, a productive effort, but the stepfather is not.
I begin to see the logic. The judge is a warped neo-fascist, born-again liberal.
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