A couple locked their two Autistic sons in a room in order to play video games and take smoke breaks,SMH! They wanted to take a break from their kids and decided that caging them up was the best option. The two are being charged with unlawful imprisonment according to reports.

Steph Bassanini

The couple who is accused of locking their two autistic sons in a room did it so they could play video games and take extended smoke breaks, the jury heard earlier this week.
A prosecutor accused John Eckhart, 31, and Alayna Higdon, 27, of locking the severely autistic boys as a matter of convenience so they could have time to themselves.
The couple’s attorney fired back, saying that the boys’ confinement was ‘a matter of safety.’
Deputy Prosecutor Dustin Richardson said Eckhart was known to take hours-long smoking breaks, leaving the boys’ 9-year-old older brother to watch them, The Columbian reported.
Meanwhile, Higdon, a college student, was away from home most days.
However, defence lawyer Jon McMullen said the boys could easily escape a baby gate and other restraints, and were known to wander from the apartment at night, McMullen said.
Psychologists will testify that the makeshift gate was appropriate considering the boys’ risk to themselves, Mr McMullen added.
The trial began Monday in Vancouver, Washington. They are charged with the unlawful imprisonment of the man’s two sons, aged five and seven, between October 2010 and April 2011.
The boys were only let out of the room for treats and a daily bath, the deputy prosecutor said. The bedroom had no toys, no light and only a child-sized race car bed without bedding.

Richardson said he planned to present evidence that the boys are now able to function properly without being locked up.
The older child is in a foster home, while the younger lives with his biological mother in Tillamook, Oregon.
During a pre-trial hearing Monday, the defence asked the judge to bar witnesses from using the terms ‘cage’ and ‘cage-like door.’
‘There was no cage. This was just a bedroom with a modified door,’ Mr McMullen said.
Judge Robert Lewis said he wasn’t going to micromanage what words witnesses can use.
Photos show Eckhart blocked the room’s entry with wire shelving bolted so that it covered the entire doorway and locked in the middle with a carabiner-type lock.
Police described it as a cage-like door.
Conviction for unlawful imprisonment carries a standard sentencing range of one to three months in jail.
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