Edward and Linda Bryant, parents of adopted brothers missing for years, charged with theft, forgery
(CBS/AP) COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. - Prosecutors in Colorado charged the adoptive parents of two missing brothers with theft and forgery Thursday.
Edward Bryant, 58, and Linda Bryant, 54, are accused of collecting nearly $175,000 in government payments for the care of the boys, even though the children haven't been in their household for years.
The Bryants have not been charged in the boys' disappearance. Authorities didn't learn that Austin Eugene Bryant and his biological brother, Edward Dylan Bryant, had disappeared until this year.
El Paso County, Colo., sheriff's investigators say the Bryants told them the boys had run away by 2003, when Austin would have been 7 and Edward 11.
The couple entered no pleas to the charges in their first court appearance Thursday. They both wore orange jail jumpsuits and their hands were cuffed behind them.
The Bryants adopted the boys in 2000. The couple later moved to Texas, where they were arrested and returned to Colorado last month.
The attorney for Edward Bryant, Sheilagh McAteer, indicated she would ask for a reduction in his $1 million bail at a preliminary hearing scheduled for June 17.
Linda Bryant is also being held on $1 million bail. Philip Dubois, the attorney representing her Thursday, didn't indicate whether a bail reduction would be sought for her. Her preliminary
hearing was scheduled for April 12.
Investigators have conducted at least one search at the Bryants' former home northwest of Colorado Springs and are following up tips from a hot line and other leads, Sheriff's Lt. Lari Sevene said.
An arrest warrant affidavit made public last week includes allegations from an adoptive brother and an acquaintance of the missing boys that Austin was denied food, spanked, forced to run up and down stairs and rolled up tightly in blankets as punishment.
Austin often grew so hungry that he scavenged food from a garbage can, an arrest warrant affidavit quotes the adoptive brother as saying.
Linda Bryant told investigators she did not kill the boys, the arrest warrant affidavit said. She denied most of the abuse allegations but acknowledged forcing the boys to exercise and
withholding food, which she described as "delaying food," the affidavit said.
The affidavit makes no mention of any comment from the elder Edward Bryant about the abuse allegations. It says he denied signing any documents to get payments for the two boys and denied any knowledge of getting government money to help with their care.
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