Man jailed on charges of child neglect for not feeding his 5-year-old son

The parents of an underweight 5-year-old are accused of criminal neglect

A Wisconsin couple, Bradley Fahrenkrug and his wife, Kimberly, have been charged with neglect, recklessly endangering the safety of a child, false imprisonment and reckless injury. reported FoxOnline.

The couple first came to the attention of the Brown County Sheriff's Office when they were contacted by American Family Children's Hospital in Madison, where the 5-year-old boy was being treated for malnutrition.

The child was admitted to the hospital on the 6th of April 2018 weighing just 29 pounds, which placed him in the 0.08 percentile on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's growth chart and at risk for heart and organ failure.

Fahrenkrug described the child as violent and refusing to eat, as an excuse for the boy's extreme physical condition.

“I guess I don’t want to say that Kim and I began to withhold food away from (the child) but we began to portion it out so that he would not get sick. We did not want him to gag which is what he would do when he would overeat.”

Bradley Fahrenkrug, FoxOnline, 25th of June 2018.

Police said that the child "has not shown any of the behavior claimed by Kimberly and Bradley and appears to be a normal 5-year-old with appropriate behaviors."

Fahrenkrug claimed that he and his wife had restricted the amount of food available to the child so that he would not 'overeat.'

He expressed fear that the child was 'manipulating the nurses now to get more food,' and that he was worried about the boy 'getting extra food now.'

Fahrenkrug said they had sought treatment for the boy, whom they had adopted. The couple who have several biological children of their own had fostered several children before adopting the 5-year-old.

Bradley Fahrenkrug pleaded no contest to one count of neglecting a child resulting in great bodily harm and four other counts were dismissed.

Fahrenkrug was sentenced to 4 months in prison and community work, and his attorney agrees with the state’s recommendation of probation and parenting classes. The little boy has been placed in foster care and is thriving.