Pima County Superior Court Judge Howard Hantman sentenced Tortellet, 52, to 2.5 years. He sentenced her former husband, Larry, 55, to 1.5 years...
Detectives found the boy living in a 49-by-41-inch closet that smelled of urine and feces and had no light. He was forced to wear a diaper, drink from a sippy cup and sleep on the floor.
"They never really let me out of the closet. Becky would beat me. She would treat me like garbage," he told the judge. "She always treated my (younger) brother like a perfect angel. He always got what he wanted."
The boy told Hantman last week he can remember being mistreated from the age of 3. He recalled being tied to car seats and beds, locked in the closet, beaten, burned with a cigarette, drugged with prescription medications and threatened with commitment to a mental institution...
[Defence attorney] Larsen attributed the boy's problems to his mother and her drug abuse, which eventually led to the boy and his brother being placed with the Tortellets, who were ill-equipped to handle a special-needs child. The grandparents "were adrift in a sea of behaviors with no skills to deal with them," Larsen said.
The Tortellets told police and CPS workers in three states that the boy was "out of control." They said they kept him confined because he would start fires; stick things in electrical sockets; steal medication; bite them; destroy furniture, windows and walls; and sneak out in the middle of the night.