Cindy Kaye Adler admitted that she took her two children from their father, who had sole legal and physical custody. But, she said, she did it because she believed they had suffered physical, sexual and emotional abuse and she wanted to keep them safe.
A jury in Ramsey County District Court didn't buy Adler's story after her daughter, now 10, testified that she'd lied to her mother when she reported that her father and stepmother had abused her.
On Monday, Adler, 35, was found guilty of two counts of deprivation of parental rights. She will be sentenced March 4 by District Judge John Van De North and likely will receive a stayed sentence.
A judge in Hennepin County Family Court awarded custody of the two children, a girl and a boy, to their father, Rafael Espinosa, in 2007. On Feb. 6, 2009, Adler, of St. Paul, took the children for a weekend visit and didn't bring them back the following Monday. The three were found in Fargo, N.D., four months later.
Adler testified last week that the children had unexplained injuries when they came to visit her and that they told her they had been abused. She felt she had no choice but to take them away.
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