Honored foster mom sentenced to probation

Adopted daughter’s care brings probation

2/26/2014

A Toledo woman once honored for her role as a foster mother was placed on probation for two years Tuesday for mistreating her adopted, teenaged daughter.

Lee Anne Henry, 60, of 3001 Brock Dr., also was ordered by Lucas County Common Pleas Judge Myron Duhart to complete parenting classes and continue counseling. The judge gave her a suspended 90-day jail sentence with the warning:

“Ms. Henry, if you come back on this case, rest assured that I’m going to take you into custody. I’m of the belief that you’re remorseful, and certainly you have the opportunity to make amends, and I fully expect you to do that.”

Mrs. Henry entered an Alford plea Jan. 27 to a misdemeanor charge of failure to provide for a functionally impaired person.

In exchange for her plea, under which she did not concede guilt but admitted there was sufficient evidence to convict her, the court dismissed two felony child-endangerment charges against her and a single count of child endangering against her husband, Christopher Henry, 61.

“This court is certainly appalled by the allegations, and it is this court’s belief that those allegations and those actions cannot go unaddressed,” the judge said.

Prosecutors had testified in January that Mrs. Henry had at times between 2005 and 2011 failed to properly care for her daughter, who has cerebral palsy. She had sent her to school without properly cleaning her and made her take baths and perform other tasks that she was unable to do without help.

For her part, Mrs. Henry told the court she was blessed to be the mother of 17 children “no matter what anyone says.”

Judge Duhart told Mrs. Henry she was fortunate to have received great compassion from the victim in the case.

From her purple motorized wheelchair, Molly Henry told the judge Tuesday that, despite the hurt she endured and the depression and anxiety that resulted, she still loved the woman she calls her mother.

“She will never know the pain that she caused me, and I still love her every day, every day,” Miss Henry told the court. “And I forgive her for the things that she’s done, but I can’t ever forget, and that’s going to be one of the hardest things I’m ever going to have to do.”

She did not recommend a sentence for Mrs. Henry, saying God would take care of that.

“At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter what happens here because at the end of the day she’s going to have to answer to Him,” Miss Henry said.

Contact Jennifer Feehan at: jfeehan@theblade.com or 419-213-2134.