Michael and Sharen Gravelle | |
---|---|
Nationality | American |
Known for | Child abuse of their 11 adopted children |
Criminal status | Released in March 2011 |
Criminal penalty | 2 years imprisonment |
Michael and Sharen Gravelle were the adoptive parents of eleven children in Clarksfield Township, Ohio, United States. In 2003 they were indicted for child abuse for, among other things, keeping the children in cage-like enclosures. The Gravelles claimed the cages were made to protect the children from each other.
Their trial motivated legislators in Ohio to pass laws to prevent people from adopting a large number of children without significant oversight by the state. [1] They used parenting methods similar to those used in attachment therapy, which involves very strict control of children using isolation, food deprivation, and other disciplinary measures that are widely considered to be unreasonably harsh, or even inhumane. The trial gained international attention and brought many inadequacies of the adoption services systems in Ohio to the fore.
In 2005 the Gravelles were sentenced to two years in prison for their crimes. [2] According to newspaper reports, their therapist, Elaine Thompson, a social worker practicing as an attachment therapist, advised the Gravelles on parenting techniques. Thompson, according to these reports, had undertaken counselling or therapy, including holding therapy, with some of the Gravelle children. Elaine Thompson was indicted along with the Gravelles but pleaded guilty to misdemeanors in a plea bargain. [3]
The Gravelles served their two-year sentences from April 2009 [4] to March 2011. [5]
The Fells Acres day care sexual abuse trial took place in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts following charges initially lodged in the mid-1980s against family members who operated a day care center, Fells Acres Day School, in Malden, Massachusetts. The facility had been opened in 1966 by Violet Amirault (1923–1997). She and her two children—son Gerald Amirault and daughter Cheryl Amirault LeFave —were tried for sexually abusing children at their facility. Gerald was tried in 1986 while his sister and mother were tried in 1987. All three were convicted and sentenced to prison. The Amiraults deny the charges, which supporters regard as a conspicuous example of day-care sex-abuse hysteria.
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The Huron County Common Pleas Court ordered the couple last week to report no later than 9 a.m. to begin serving their two-year prison sentences.