Chapter 16 - Reid’s Charge
Prosecutors charged Reid with one misdemeanor child-endangerment count related to the prior locked-closet incident and knowingly establishing the confinement practice.
Not the custody plan.
Planning a legal separation is not criminal.
Deception in a proposed consent document was family-law territory because no false signature had been used and no order filed.
The closet was different.
Evidence:
Texts.
Perry’s limited statement.
Reid’s own admission.
He entered a plea to a reduced misdemeanor child-discipline/endangerment count.
Sentence:
Probation.
Parenting course.
Community service.
No jail.
No contact with Constance and Perry together without approved supervision initially.
He did not fight.
At sentencing:
“I told myself the room was safe.”
Then:
“I used physical safety as the only definition of safety because that made my decision easier to defend.”
Good.
Then:
“I also used my mother to do things I did not want to watch.”
That mattered.
“Perry learned that being inconvenient could cost him access to me.”
Reid cried.
“I taught that.”
No excuse.
I cried too.
Because he was still the man who had once slept on a hospital chair when Perry had RSV.
May you like
Love does not disappear simply because trust does.
Our marriage still ended.
