EXCLUSIVE: Inside the creepy ‘prison cell’ where adopted 14-year-old Florida boy’s Christian parents ‘kept him locked up with a bucket for a toilet, under constant video surveillance and spanked him with a belt as he lay naked’
- Tracy and Timothy Ferriter, both 46, face child abuse charges over claims they whipped and beat their adopted 14-year-old son
- They forced him to live inside an 8ft by 8ft box in the garage of their Jupiter, Florida home whenever he wasn’t at school
- DailyMail.com can reveal the couple were first reported to authorities by builder Jacques Ben Aim who was paid $3,000 to build a ‘very strange’ office inside their garage
- The structure had a light that could only be turned on from outside and just contained a mattress, a desk, a chair and a BUCKET for bathroom purposes
- ‘[The victim] stated the spankings would take place in his bedroom and he would be naked bent over his bed
- When investigators seized the Ring device they found thousands of videos showing the boy being bullied and locked up on a daily basis, according to filings
- Both face one count of aggravated child abuse and one count of false imprisonment, apiece, and were released on $50,000 bail each
The creepy ‘prison cell’ where a teen boy was allegedly kept locked up and under constant video surveillance by his clean-cut Christian parents can be revealed for the first time by DailyMail.com.
Tracy and Timothy Ferriter face child abuse charges over claims they whipped and beat their adopted 14-year-old son and forced him to live inside an 8ft by 8ft box in the garage of their Jupiter, Florida home.
The accused couple, both 46, told cops the makeshift cage was a home office – despite it having no windows and no door handle on the inside but with a deadbolt and the only light switch located on the outside.
It was also fitted with a CCTV camera so the pair could monitor the youngster day and night as he slept, ate and spent up to 18 hours at a time inside the pokey drywall cube, only allowing him out to go to school, it’s alleged.
Their three other kids aged two, 13 and 16, lived normally at the family’s spacious $750,000 property while their sibling was fed scraps and forced to do yard work and write lines for petty offences such as ‘stealing’ cookies, according to court filings.
Tracy Ferriter, 46 (left), and Timothy Ferriter, 46 (right), both of Jupiter, have both pled not guilty to one count of aggravated child abuse and one count of false imprisonment for allegedly forcing their adopted son to stay in a locked cell-like structure in their garage whenever he wasn’t attending school
Tracy and Timothy Ferriter face child abuse charges over claims they whipped and beat their adopted 14-year-old son and forced him to live inside an 8ft by 8ft box in the garage of their Jupiter, Florida home
The accused couple, both 46, told cops the makeshift cage was a home office – despite it having no windows and no door handle on the inside but with a deadbolt and the only light switch located on the outside
DailyMail.com can reveal the couple were first reported to authorities on December 28 last year by builder Jacques Ben Aim who was paid $3,000 and given just two days to build a ‘very strange’ office inside their garage
The Ferriters were arrested on February 8 after their son ran away and revealed his grim plight to police, telling them he would rather be locked up in prison than sent back to his devout Catholic parents, who face trial for aggravated abuse and false imprisonment.
Ben Aim was told the free-standing structure would not require a window and should only have a lock on the outside of the door. He was asked to drill a hole in the ceiling for a video camera cord
DailyMail.com can reveal the couple were first reported to authorities on December 28 last year by builder Jacques Ben Aim who was paid $3,000 and given just two days to build a ‘very strange’ office inside their garage.
Ben Aim was told the free-standing structure would not require a window and should only have a lock on the outside of the door. He was asked to drill a hole in the ceiling for a video camera cord.
‘The husband Timothy rang me and said he wanted an eight by eight foot office with no window,’ Ben Aim, 43, told DailyMail.com this week.
‘He said it should have its own ceiling so it was sealed completely. That meant it was like a cage but I said ok, it’s his money, what do I care if he doesn’t want a window?
‘On the last day he asked me to fit a lock but he wanted it reversed so that the knob was on the outside. That’s what set off the red lights.
‘I could not think of a single reason to reverse the lock, accept one – to lock someone inside.’
The shocking revelations followed a year-long child abuse investigation, sparked on January 28, 2021 when the teen ran away the Ferriter home at the 200 block of Crane Point North in the Egret Landing community, pictured
Tracy and Tommy Ferriter are pictured with three of their children. The couple’s three other children were removed from their house by Child Protective Services, including one child who is two years old
Ben Aim was so troubled by the specs that he rang the Jupiter Police Department, warning that it could be used to keep someone prisoner.
He says that detectives agreed it was suspicious but couldn’t act on the information because there was no specific evidence of a crime.
That changed on January 28 of this year when Tracy Ferriter contacted police to say her son had gone missing, claiming he suffered from ‘several behavioral disorders’ and had been in trouble at school.
Detective Andrew Sharp visited the Ferriter property so he could look for clues and examine the ‘office’ described in Ben Aim’s tip-off for himself, according to court filings.
Sharp located the cubicle in the couple’s garage and found a bed, chair, a desk and some school books inside it.
When the missing teen was located close to his school the next day he told cops all about his alleged life of captivity, saying he was banned from the rest of his house, fed leftovers and forced to go to the toilet in a bucket.
He also claimed he had been whipped, spanked with a belt, struck in the face and spat on by his parents who monitored him via a Ring camera and only let him out for lessons and yard work.
‘[The victim] stated the spankings would take place in his bedroom and he would be naked bent over his bed. [The victim] stated he could recall one spanking was so painful he fell off his bed in pain,’ the affidavit states.
When investigators seized the Ring device they found thousands of videos showing the boy being bullied and locked up on a daily basis, according to filings.
The unnamed 14year-old boy told police he was spanked, hit with a belt and a jumprope and frequently spit on, and reportedly asked to be put in jail so he didn’t have to go back to his adopted parents, pictured here with their children
‘In one video in particular [the victim] was locked in his room after being found to have “stolen” chocolate cookies from the kitchen despite being told he was not allowed to have them,’ the affidavit states.
‘This behavior resulted in [the victim] having the covers removed from his mattress, his mattress picked up and tossed against the wall and Timothy grabbing [the victim] against the arm yelling at him.’
The boy told cops he ran away ‘because I feel like nobody loves me’. He begged them to take him into care because ‘he would rather be in prison than back home,’ the affidavit adds.
Outwardly respectable Timothy Ferriter has held high-up marketing positions at several Fortune 500 companies, according to a now-deleted online profile.
He was previously listed as the president of a publishing company named Decided Excellence Catholic Media and in 2018 he was a guest on a SiriusXM podcast hosted by Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the Archbishop of New York.
Detectives suspect he and his wife could have been locking up their son since as long ago as 2017 after finding evidence that similar cell-like rooms existed at their previous houses.
Before moving to Jupiter in November 2021 the family lived at a sprawling ranch in Tucson, Arizona, whose current owner told DailyMail.com he saw a strange box structure in the garage when he first toured the property.
It was torn down before he moved in and he never reported it to police as he had no reason to doubt the couple, whose social media pages are filled with wholesome pictures of vacations, family meals and outings.
Prior to that the Ferriters lived at a different house in Jupiter from 2014 to 2017 which was advertised as having a ‘bonus room’ in its garage when they sold it to current owner, Anthony Tanona.
Tanona told police he had it removed because ‘the room could only be locked from the outside and he believed the room was made to keep someone inside of it,’ according to court filings.
‘When he was shown inside the room it had a small child sized bed inside with comforter,’ the filings add.
Timothy and Tracy Ferriter were released on $50,000 bond but all four of their kids were removed by Child Protective Services.
The couple’s attorney, Nellie King, presented documents in court suggesting their son suffered from a condition called reactive attachment disorder.
A lawyer representing Timothy Ferriter, right, and his wife said that the 14-year-old suffered from a reactive attachment disorder that prevented him from forming healthy emotional bonds with his caretakers, and suggested that this contributed to his parents’ decision to lock him up
The condition makes it hard for children to form a healthy bond with their caretakers and may have played a role in their decision to lock him up, she said, according to a report from WPTV.
King also claimed in a statement that investigators ignored ‘critical evidence’ from Arizona that will ultimately vindicate the Ferriters.
‘In the criminal legal system, the temptation for a community to rush to judge is tempered by the judicial process, a presumption of innocence and the facts,’ she said.
‘What Tim and Tracy have lived through the past many years will therefore be presented in court.’
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