On August 20, a Pennsylvania Tik Tok parent of seven was sentenced to prison after pleading guilty to aiding caged animals to malnourished children.
According to the Bucks County District Attorney’s Office, Shane Robertson, 48, and Crystal Robertson, 38, will spend the next eight to 16 years in state prison on child endangerment and animal neglect charges. These charges also included allegations of bodily harm.
It also says that he was banned from having any contact with his children, who were between 4 and 16 years old, until the age of 18.
The incident began in April 2023 when Pennridge Regional Police responded to a report that two young girls were wandering outside a trailer park in Sellersville and entered an abandoned trailer and began what I received.
When they arrived at the scene, authorities found seven children, six girls and one boy, living in squalid conditions, surrounded by animals and their parents. It was later discovered that the children were clinically malnourished, most were sick and had no formal education.
“The following week it emerged that none of the seven children had received any formal education and all lacked basic skills. Some didn’t even know their date of birth. Four of the children had language disorders,” the researchers said at the time. .
All children have difficulties reading, writing and spelling.
“Two dogs, two turtles, two rabbits, a snake, a toad and a four-foot-long reptile known as a tegu in the house, along with approximately 20 rats,” the document states.
In court, prosecutors alleged that Crystal Robertson created a TikTok account for a tegu named Boudin and in one video she fed the lizard “a piece of salmon” because the children were being neglected.
Given the children’s malnutrition and the severe lack of food in the family’s locked refrigerator, authorities argued that the Robertsons treated the animals better than the children, and Common Pleas Judge Carissa J. Liller agreed, calling them “two of the “worst parents”. I have ever seen it in my life. ”
The children were placed in the care of Bucks County Children, Youth and Human Services and the animals were turned over to the Bucks County SPCA.
Prosecutors told the judge that the children have shown signs of growth since leaving the home. They are healthier, have friends and go to school. Particle for direct object