Shanda Vander Ark Sentencing, Tortured Son Murder Trial

[00:00:00] Speaker ?: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. [00:01:08] Speaker 1: Nothing to say. [00:01:30] Speaker ?: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. [00:03:08] Speaker 2: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. [00:03:14] Speaker ?: Thank you. [00:03:14] Speaker 2: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. [00:03:22] Speaker ?: Thank you. [00:03:22] Speaker 2: Thank you. Roberts the date and time scheduled for a sentencing in this case have the people had a chance to read the pre-sentence report any attached guidelines we have [00:03:31] Speaker 3: your honor we have no additions or Corrections although I have been advised by mr. Johnson that he does have a number of Corrections we've discussed those over email and but for his objection to the restitution award we [00:03:41] Speaker 2: have no objection to the Corrections that he is seeking okay I did get an email from Mr. Johnson I appreciate that why don't we just go through each objection just to make sure we have them all on the record and then we'll inquire to mr. Roberts whether or not he objects to that so thank you may we start [00:03:59] Speaker 1: with the very first page one the first page one okay as I noted under the personal history information it notes that my clients educational attainment has been a bachelor's degree we're asking the court strike that and insert the words juris doctorate any objection mr. Roberts [00:04:23] Speaker 2: and then just for probation knows I'll miss Anderson I will send you did you get a copy of the email I did not your honor I'll forward that to you just so you'll have it in writing exactly what all the corrections are so all right go ahead mr. Johnson [00:04:39] Speaker 1: Roberts on page to the very next page at the under the whoops jail credit it just uh in the case of the dates that we're in question here are in July 7 2022 to January 19th 2024 and we're asking the court to amend that to today's date uh the second day uh January 23rd 2024 my objection mr. Roberts that uh that checks out judge on the on page two of the interior of the document the second page two on the uh let's see one two third paragraph down there's a request for restitution for five thousand dollars to the michigan department of health and human services we object to that request we ask that the court uh disallow that request of this juncture uh we haven't received any information to justify it and uh we'd ask for a um a hearing uh if if the court plans to proceed on that mr. Roberts your honor that request is made [00:05:55] Speaker 3: by the department of health and human services as compensation back to the crime victims rights compensation act that fund did pay out some funeral expenses as a result of this and the fund is entitled to seek compensation from the defendant in those cases um i think it would end up being jointed and severally liable with um with paul ferguson as well if we get to that juncture with paul ferguson but we do believe it is an appropriate award and there is documentation from the state to indicate that that award was paid out so we would request that that five thousand dollars be ordered [00:06:24] Speaker 2: um has mr johnson then provided that documentation he may not have i can forward those uh mr johnson would you prefer to just have the restitution portion reserved until you can receive the documentation then if you so choose you can ask for a restitution hearing i guess what would your preference be or mr roberts what your preference would be i mean i can order it with with the ability for mr johnson to come in and ask for a hearing uh but i guess it depends on what either one [00:06:55] Speaker 3: you would like to do if i could just make a suggestion i i would prefer that in in lieu of that the only other thing i would ask that is if i can get the information to mr johnson my understanding is miss van der arc has another matter which is being uh handled in front of a different judge at this time that case is not going to resume not going to finish today and she will be here at least until tomorrow that perhaps by then we can work out this restitution issue um and i can just move forward that way with the court ordering it and then if mr johnson chose at a later time to challenge it certainly he would [00:07:24] Speaker 2: have the right to do that through a motion okay yeah what i'll do is i mean i think the the paragraph in there saying that the requesting restitution i don't think there's any need to strike that in terms of ordering it um i what i'll do is i'm going to order it with the your opportunity mr johnson to request a hearing and obviously if if there's if you want a hearing we'll have a hearing on it and if you [00:07:46] Speaker 3: don't uh then it'll stand as order thank you i'll provide mr johnson the documentation we have as [00:07:51] Speaker 1: well so i know that judge okay uh you can continue mr johnson uh page three judge and this this first uh one was not in the email that i sent to the court this is when i i was able to uh identify later on and it's in the first very first sentence the first sentence read it is therefore recommended i think there was intention that the words there and for be combined into therefore okay to make that correction objection mr roberts no objection all right on the third paragraph under description of offense narrative in the last line of the third paragraph there were visible bruised on his chest i believe it ought to have been bruises on his chest and we'd ask to make that correction okay no objection on page if court will go forward to page five all right um let's see one two three four five paragraph six uh it there's a description of the plea negotiation for uh paul ferguson there and while we don't object to what stated we would like to add uh language that in addition to what stated that the appeal that have agreed to fairly and fully inform the court and i think that was that was testified to as part of the agreement that is accurate judge so no objection to that okay okay on page seven under the um heading of employment um the under unemployed then it's a 17th circuit court i believe the intention was to say 27th circuit court genre that's where the [00:09:44] Speaker 2: employment was in fact yeah i did see that i think the 17th is actually kent county uh i believe so it's a 27th circuit court any objection mr roberts no objection all right and your honor we're asking [00:09:56] Speaker 1: the court at to add to the employment that my client was uh also employed uh with the 14th circuit court [00:10:04] Speaker 3: as a law clerk as well uh january 2021 to august 2021 january 2021 to august 2021 2021 your honor okay any objection mr roberts it's a fairly minor point but i think technically that was an internship i don't know if that qualifies as employment but i'm i'm not if the court wants to put that in there that's fine [00:10:28] Speaker 2: yeah i kind of thought i thought the same thing um i mean we don't differentiate between i mean i guess we can say rate of pay as an uh internship i think that kind of will make sense to me miss any objection [00:10:41] Speaker 1: to that mr that's appropriate your honor we will support that okay all right and on that same page judge under colleges advanced degrees uh the second one down west west michigan university cooley law school uh under level completed it says three years college four years college and it should be three years and the area study should be law not legal assistance okay any objection mr object and certificate i'm sorry you're correct certificate should be juris doctorate all right correct okay okay on the next page page eight uh and this also was not included in my original email judge under mental health where it says bipolar disorder okay we now have the uh uh the medications that's been prescribed and i'm going to spell them uh for the record the first one is l-a-m-i-s-t-i-l lamistal it's lamictal c not s okay l-a-m-i-c-t-a-t-i-l oh okay and and it's spelled v-i-s-t-a-r-i-t-i l okay v-i-s-t-a-r-i-l it's terrible visceral and the treatment commenced in 2024 okay um the third page one the following page under basic information highest grade completed it says bachelor's degree that should be juris doctorate your honor okay any objection mr roberts no objection and thank you and i have no additional corrections to make to the psi [00:12:43] Speaker 2: all right uh any additions or corrections to the guidelines at all mr roberts no and uh mr johnson any any corrections or additions any corrections of the guidelines no sir okay any challenges of the guidelines mr roberts no judge mr johnson no sir all right miss van der arc have you had an opportunity to review the pre-sentence report and the attached guidelines yes sir any additions or corrections that you have no sir okay mr roberts i believe we have um some individuals here who wish to make victim impact [00:13:16] Speaker 3: statements is that correct that's correct your honor the two older siblings of kenneth ferguson [00:13:20] Speaker 2: with exclusion to paul uh would like to make a statement okay um they may um come forward and and whoever wishes to speak first may go ahead and they can stay there they can come to the podium it's completely up to okay and uh just for the record i think miss ferguson actually wrote a letter as well i believe and i believe it's included yes yeah i have read that it's attached to the psi but i'm certainly she's certainly welcome to make a statement good afternoon ma'am how are you i'm good how are you um can you [00:13:59] Speaker 4: please state your name for the record um millie joan ferguson thank you i'm millie i'm timothy's youngest older sister i'm two years older than him one of my earliest memories i have was being taken away from my parents by cps my two older brothers rode in a car ahead of us and me and timothy rode together in the second car and in every picture we have as a family timothy was always right by my side we were the two youngest the two smallest we were the two that sat in the middle in the back seat car rides with the two small car the last two to get hammy downs the two that never had to worry about not getting homework help from an older sibling he was always two years behind me so every time i got to the next level in school that's how many years i had to wait for him to follow along when i was in eighth grade he was in sixth and there was a student in my science class that started talking about him trying to start rumors i stood up right his class was starting as people were crying down and i shouted at him to never talk about my little brother people could say whatever they wanted about me i didn't care but not about him and never about him because i was his big sister it was my job to protect him i like to say i don't regret things in my life that every mistake i've made has made me who i am today but when timothy died i couldn't stop regretting i regret not hugging him more and teasing him so much instead of telling him that i loved him every once in a while i regret not putting aside my differences with shonda and paul just to check in on him i regret not dancing with him the last time i saw him at our brother's wedding these are the things that i can't remedy now there's no fixing what's been done no way to redo it all over again and that's my regret that i couldn't protect him when he needed me most timothy was so smart he could take anything apart with any tools or none at all he had trouble focusing but when he did he was just as smart as the rest of his class he made people angry yes but then he would look at you with those big baby blue eyes and you could never stay mad at him it took me six months of therapy after he died to even properly feel the emotions of his death and i'm still in therapy today i've been trying so hard since he passed away just to try to let people know of him let people know that he was loved that there are people out there grieving for him i'm here today for him because i was asked to speak for him because i was given a victim impact statement form instead of a witness one because the victim of this crime can't speak for himself i knew him his whole life i held him the day he was born and i continued to try to hold his hand as long as he was in by my side until he wasn't i want the woman who killed my little brother to face the highest punishment possible i want her detained for the rest of her life so she can't hurt anyone else and i want the world to know that timothy was wanted if not by her then by me he was loved [00:17:14] Speaker 3: or by me thank you uh nolan ferguson will be next judge okay [00:17:39] Speaker 5: please say your name for the rest my i go by nolan my full name is eric nolan ferguson jr i am timothy's oldest brother and unfortunately the oldest child of shonda vanderark i live with my wife 900 miles from here and in july of 2022 i was working 60-hour work weeks trying to build a career when i received a phone call that i never thought i would get my baby brother timothy was gone for two days i reeled with no explanation until i was informed that our own mother was in jail for his murder somehow making an entirely unexpected and deeply awful situation worse i thought the things were different than when i was younger i thought my mother had changed for the better not one day has been easier since then i've had to leave my career behind my wife has to watch helplessly as i struggled day in and day out wondering how none of us knew what was going on wondering if i told tim tim i loved him enough times for him to remember up until the very end i have to wake up every day and pretend that i am who i was before timothy died i have to pretend to be nolan so that my friends and co-workers and family won't worry about me more than they already do i'm surrounded by people who love me and care about me but not a single person besides my sisters who understand how hard it is timothy wasn't surrounded by people who loved him when he died and if i had known that nothing could have stopped me from rescuing him and holding him in my arms and telling him i love him that his big brothers got him just like i did the day he was born but because of sean devanderock's actions i instead got to cradle the bag of his ashes in my arms just like i did the day he was born in all my life i only knew one thing that my little brother didn't like he hated goodbyes if he had to say goodbye to anyone he would cry and he would hold you and he would say don't go but now i'm the one crying but i never got to say goodbye i will always love timothy like i always have and it kills me to think about but i know he loved even his abuser and killer up until the very end because unlike me that's all he was capable of love i on the contrary want to stand here and express the anger and hatred that i feel but if i'm honest all that's just a mask a bandage i try to put over the hole in my heart that was reserved for timothy but is now just filled with pain and remorse for every hug high five and i loved you that i might have missed in the time that i had with my sweet baby brother so now i turn to the justice system in hopes that in addition to serving the maximum penalty that there will be no appeals or second chances if i can't have my brother back she shouldn't have her freedom back and lastly i want everyone to know that to those who knew him even that wouldn't feel like justice because the life of one sweet little blue-eyed boy is not equivalent to [00:20:46] Speaker 3: that of a murderer thank you judge um i want to preface this by saying that those of us involved in the justice system including the defendant know what sentence the court is going to impose here at least for that first degree murder charge and it is a sentence which is as warranted in this case as ever there was a case that life without parole is the only sentence that miss van der ark should receive i i wanted to stand here for two reasons i wanted to stand here up here at this podium next to millie and next to nolan as they gave their statements for two reasons one to show that we support them that we support whatever whatever statement they wanted to make here today but i also wanted to see miss van der ark she didn't look over at her kids once not once during this entire process did she look over at her children and that speaks volumes because this case has always struck me that it's impossible as a parent let alone as a human being to understand the depths of the depravity that it took for us to come here today all of the things that she did or all of the things that she withheld or all of the things that she directed her other son to do are so so callous and so cold but they just defy explanation and i convinced myself that the only thing that could make any sense is that on some level she had stopped thinking of her children as human beings and frankly her not looking over and not not even wanted to express some type of emotion or some type of remorse or some type of recognition of those two older children that she had a hand in raising and who spoke so eloquently and so beautifully and so passionately here today just reflects what i guess we already feared and already knew about miss van der ark by a long margin this case has been the most difficult case that i've ever worked on as prosecutor there are a few people that have had any contact with this that wouldn't say the same thing whether it's police officers whether it's the first responders whether it's the paramedics or the firefighters who were on the scene who all needed counseling to get through it to the prosecutors that have looked at this to the other attorneys that have looked at this to anyone you talk to nobody can look at this and understand any of this and certainly nothing in miss van der ark's testimony we know it wasn't persuasive for the jury and nothing in her testimony can provide any real insight into what was going on here again other than my what i feel is the conclusion here is that her children were just not people to her that she just stopped thinking of them as that they were certainly timothy was just an obstacle to her he was a challenge that she was going to win she was not going to let timothy win and she said it over and over again in the text messages and it's just unfathomable again i know the court has no discretion to impose and and we certainly welcome and stand wholeheartedly behind the court here having to impose the life without parole sentence but i would say this the court does still have some work to do because it does have to impose a sentence for that first degree child abuse case and as the court is aware and we have not contested the guidelines in this case they call for a minimum sentence of between 135 and 225 months but i submit to the court if ever there was a case if ever there was a case where the guidelines don't even come close to reflecting the charge it's this case if not this case then i can't even fathom what case it would be even with the offense variable scored at nearly double what would be necessary to maximize that score, that still doesn't even scratch the surface of what this woman did. I don't know, frankly, what number to suggest to the court. For years, I practiced in front of Judge Hicks. I know that Your Honor did as well, and Judge Hicks would frequently throw out numbers when he was discussing the discretion that the court has for life offenses, to throw out just numbers that just seem ridiculous. They don't seem ridiculous in a case like this. They just don't, because nothing, again, can touch what this case was. Nothing will bring Timothy back. We all know that. We can't escape that tragedy. The time for that has passed. But I would ask the court to send a message here that reflects how heinous, how callous, how cold. Use whatever adjective you want to describe these actions. That even for that first-degree child abuse case, that's what this sentence should reflect. And those guidelines just don't even come close. So I leave it in the court's discretion here, and again, knowing that despite what decision it makes on that charge, it has no discretion with the life without parole sentence. And the only solace I take away from this, and I hope all the relatives and all the loved ones and all the people that cared about Timothy know that the only thing we can do at this point and the only thing this court should do at this point is to make sure that Ms. Vander Aert never sees a day of freedom again. [00:26:27] Speaker ?: Thank you. [00:26:28] Speaker 2: Thank you, Mr. Roberts. Mr. Johnson, any allocution on behalf of your client prior to sentencing? [00:26:37] Speaker 1: Yes, Your Honor, if I may. Very few people, I think, in this courtroom have the experience of going into a jail to meet your client for the first time. I know Your Honor has. And it's a strange feeling to go in there because usually when we go in there, judge, we've read a police report, and in some of those cases, it describes something just horrible, just the terrible things that happen. And we go into those jail cells, and we see this client, and we're looking because we're expecting to see horns in the tail, in the pitchfork. That's what is being described. And we get in there, and we see just a person who is now facing jeopardy due to the worst thing that she's ever done in her life. And whatever else has made this person that way is not in the guideline scores. In my client's case, judge, as you've read the pre-sentence, and the people have read it and it's been admitted, her biological father, my client's biological father, died when she was eight years old. And he also sexually and physically abused her, which means he began before she turned eight. And as the court is aware, we don't catch these guys the first time, and especially when force and violence is used, they can hide their transgressions for years. Once this man is out of her life, another man comes into her life, her stepfather, who does the same thing until she's old enough to move out of the house. The court is also aware that my client has also had the burden of mental health issues. and quite frankly, the reality is when people are conditioned to believe that that's the sort of treatment that they deserve by their father and their stepfather and their mother's not going to protect them, they tend to seek out that sort of abuse in the spouses. So the abuse continues all through the youth of her life until she finally frees herself of this man. And what does she do when she frees herself? She puts herself, without resources, she has no wealth, without resources, she puts herself through college. She puts herself through law school. She not just puts herself through, she's second in her class in college, and she's second in her class in law school. And she has, what is it, eight book? [00:29:21] Speaker ?: Eight books. [00:29:22] Speaker 1: Eight books from law school, which she's, you know, jokingly told us twice, what her stepfather had, they talked about those things. She goes on and she provides a home for her three children and her ailing husband without, while going to school full-time, while being a mother full-time, while working full-time, she does all these things. But she makes a mistake. She makes one decision she shouldn't have made. She says yes. She has no criminal history. I couldn't find a speeding ticket. She raised dogs. She did Herculean stuff. When she got that phone call telling her that Timothy is either going to come to her or he was going to go into foster care, she says yes. Had she said no, I already have a house full of people I can't afford. We don't have the resources. Had she said no, my husband's sick, I have a 20-year-old son who's still living office, living, sleeping on the couch. Had she said no, Timothy would be alive today and he would probably be in the loving care of a foster family, probably someone who could take care of kids with special needs. Has she said no with her academic backgrounds and quite frankly, given the fact of she has a relative in the legal profession who's highly regarded in the profession, she would now be practicing law and probably be doing very well at it, given her academic abilities. But she didn't say no. She did what moms do. She said that's my baby. I'm taking him home and I'm bringing him into the house. She brought him in knowing that she shouldn't have him there because she doesn't have custody. She brought him in knowing that she couldn't get him into schools and get him in the meds because she didn't have custody. Her ex-husband was not going to assist her in that. She brought him in knowing she wasn't going to get any more financial assistance. It wasn't her intention for us to be here. It was never her intention. Something broke. If she had said no or if we wouldn't be here, something broke. Judge, this case makes no sense to anybody. There is no gain for her from this conduct. And again, if the court heard the transcripts of those emails, those text messages, she and Paul are unaware of the damage. They don't see it. How could you not see it? Because something's broken. There's no specific intent here. There's no intention. Her intentions was to mother her kids like she did the other two children that were in her home household. That was her intention. Her intention was to provide as she did with the other two kids. You don't see this with the other children. This is justice. Something about this boy and this woman broke. 30 years ago, we didn't know about postpartum depression. 20 years ago, we didn't know about postpartum psychosis. Someday, somebody's going to tell us what's wrong with this woman and why anyone would be capable of what she did. Somebody's going to explain it. 400 years ago, we burned people like her at the stake because the blood lust was there. And that's what made people feel better and that's what people, that was their solution to a horrible situation. Well, there is Mr. Roberts' description of this offense. Nothing's inaccurate. Nothing he said. Do I disagree with? But I think you have to add in the part that something's wrong here. Something's wrong here. And even if we can't put a label on it, we all know it. This is her. This Timothy was her blood son. This wasn't some child. This wasn't a financial gain. This wasn't a stranger. This was her blood. She gave birth to this boy. And yet she was able to do what she did. Something's broken. The human mind just is, is, is capacities and its reasonings. I don't claim to understand, but I can, we can look at her, her life before then and the circumstances and they come together. And, and unfortunately, Timothy is the victim of it. That we get that. But the idea that this is premeditated or she's intended. They, they, the video show when she, she, she was surprised. She was surprised when he passed. Something's, something's amiss. And I'm asking the court to respond to that reality. The easiest thing would be to, to exceed the guidelines. But I'm asking for it to do the hard thing and that is to respond to reality. This is a person who, if she had said no, 10 years from now, she'll be practicing law and people will be asking her to come and to speak to high schools to talk about how you overcome what you've overcome. The mental health issues, the abuse from man after man after man. This is, this is, was a survivor and a person who pulled herself up by her own bootstraps, no resources, all on her own, all her effort. This is what she's done as well. And it's unfortunate. It's, it's horrible for Timothy. And it's horrible for her. But at the end of the day, we're not, we're not looking at evil, we're looking at sick. And I'd ask the court to apply that standard. Thank you. [00:35:32] Speaker 2: All right. Thank you, Mr. Johnson. Ms. VanderArk, do you wish to say anything prior to sentencing? Well, first and foremost, for the individuals here to speak on Timothy's behalf, I appreciate you being here. It kind of struck me throughout the trial, you know, who, who was here for Timothy. And at one point in time, I worried that we may not have anyone to give a victim impact statement. And that to me was, made me very sad, quite frankly, horrified more than anything, but quite sad. And I'm happy that two individuals took time to be here from miles across the country. And out of the horrible situation, that makes me feel a little bit better. Not much, but a little bit better. You know, Mr. Johnson makes the same argument today that he made at the trial, that this was just negligence. This was her not understanding what was going on. She was really trying to do the punishment. She was trying to be a good parent. And she just didn't realize that Timothy was in such a horrible condition. And I find myself, I found myself, especially during closing argument, quite frankly, finding myself almost believing that. And afterwards, I sat in my car after leaving that day trying to understand why I could feel that way. And what I realized is that I wanted to feel that way because I didn't want to accept the reality of the situation here. And the reality of the situation here is that this person, Ms. VanderArk, you intentionally engaged in these acts. This wasn't negligence. This is not understanding why. But you intentionally did this with a goal. And I think Mr. Johnson's correct. I don't believe there was an intent to kill here because you would have lost the very thing that you wanted to torture. Without him, you have no one to torture, except maybe the younger children. So I don't believe you intended to kill him. I think you intended to continue on torturing him for as long as you possibly could. The why, I don't know. But all the information that I have in front of me and I sat down, I really thought about this, and I looked over my notes from the trial, demonstrate that this wasn't negligence. This wasn't you not understanding what was going on. You look through, I read through every single text message of the exhibit, 2,000 plus pages to try to understand what the heck was going through your mind. And what became entirely clear to me is that you knew exactly what you were doing. Immediately afterwards when police live at the home, you immediately concoct this lie about he's been on a hunger strike. He was in the bed and I checked on him and I gave him some food and all this stuff. You got Paul involved in it. At one point in time, you put baggy clothes on him. Put clothes on him to make sure, I guess, that he looks like he was actually wearing them, that he was hiding his poor condition, even though you already received text messages weeks earlier of how bad he looked. You testified yourself how highly intelligent you were. In fact, that's the only thing that you testified to that I think was actually true. You were quite proud of that, boastingly, boasting how intelligent you were. And not only that, but your actions in hiding this child. You hid him from his grandparents. You made sure that your other son, G, or little man, as you call him, didn't see him. You know, those text messages talk about not wanting anyone to see him. I want to see him in that condition. You made sure that the garage was closed when he was, when you sent him out, there was no pants on to clean out the garage. I don't want to believe it because I don't understand. I can't wrap my mind. I've been trying now for this entire case to wrap my mind around about how somebody could do something so horrific, not only to another human being, but to their own child. I'm a father myself. I love my kids. I love them unconditionally. But quite frankly, there's a mother's love that I've seen that is striking. And anybody who's a parent who's married, most mothers, and not all, but most mothers have such a strong love for their children. And to see what you did to your own child, I don't know if there's a word in the English language to describe how to describe it. I don't think I can come up with just horrific. You intentionally and systematically tortured this child. And let's call it what it is. It's torture. You tortured this child. This wasn't punishment. This wasn't trying to curb his behavior. You tortured him. You monitored him obsessively. You... All the things you did. I looked through every one of the messages. Bread with hot sauce. Wall sits. Up and down the stairs. Sleep deprivation. Ice baths. Making him puke up food. Monitoring his bathroom time. Giving him 60 seconds in the bathroom if he went to... Urinated. Or five minutes if he had a bowel movement. You made him sleep in the closet. You threatened to... To make him sleep in the garage. You put Tabasco directly in his mouth. You made him... You put his hands over the head. Where it made him... Made him work in the garage with no pants. And, you know, there's two other things that I... That didn't come out in the trial that were in the... In the messages. One, that there was talk of blindfolding him. Depriving him of his physical sight as a punishment. And the last thing that struck me is just absolutely horrific in terms of your thinking. There was mentioning of giving him salt water. As a punishment. One of the text messages talks about, Hey, tell Paul or tell Tim that I'm not gonna do the salt water punishment. And your reasoning for not punishing him not was that, Oh my God, we can't give him salt water. That could hurt him. That could kill him. But it was because you didn't want to give him another excuse to sit down on the toilet because he'd have diarrhea. He'd have diarrhea. And so he would have an excuse to sit down for a few more minutes while he was diarrhea from salt water. That was your excuse. That was your justification. Not that it would hurt him. And you did so for what? Because of some punishment. You wanted to regulate his food even though you yourself testified that he didn't really gain a lot of weight. You know, toward the end of these text messages, you and Paul are talking about not wanting him to win. He's not going to win. I didn't allow pictures to be shown in opening court of Timothy as he was when he died because I didn't want people to remember him like that. Of all the things you took away from him, one thing I didn't want you to take away from him was at least some shred of dignity. And then I also thought, well, I'm a judge. I'm a human being. I don't know how to, I don't know how to write this wrong. We try to do that. I try to do that from the bench every day. There's no way to write this wrong except impose a sentence that essentially takes away your freedom. And I thought to myself, what do I do? And I will tell you this, I'm choosing not to remember your son dead, looking like a Holocaust victim. And I'm choosing to remember like that. And you can't even look at him. That's how he was. A beautiful child with a lot of life in his eyes. That's who your son was. And you took that from him. I'm choosing to remember him as a happy individual with life, not as an individual. And that's the picture I want people to remember of your son. You took that from him. You took it from him. For what reason, I don't know. Mr. Johnson's right. There is something broken in you. I don't know what that is. But it doesn't negate what you did here. So besides remembering him like that, I'm not going to let you hide in the darkness anymore. People know what you are now. They know what you did. You're not able to hide in the darkness anymore. Timothy won. And he won because we know what you did to him now. It's not hidden anymore. We know who you are. That's the way that I'm going to honor him. You don't win because justice, thank God, in this case prevail. I can't even imagine if you had been able to resuscitate him. He'd be still suffering. So if there's any thing I'm grateful for would be that he finally passed away so you couldn't continue to torture him what you did. It's a sentence of the court. First says to count two, child abuse in the first degree. The court sentences you 50 years to 100 years in prison, credit for 575 days. The court is exceeding guidelines in this case. The court finds that the amount of torture that I've indicated in terms of the long-term suffering that Mr. Vander, excuse me, Mr. Ferguson, Timothy went through justifies on a reasonable grounds to depart from the guidelines. Used to be the standard it was the guidelines. If the guidelines had taken into consideration all the elements, I don't think they would take into consideration the amount of absolute systematic, consistent torture that you engaged in here. I think that's enough reasons to justify departing from the guidelines. There's a $68 state cost, $130 crime victim rights assessment assessment. As to count one, felony murder, it's a sentence of the court. You serve a term within the Michigan Department of Corrections for the rest of your natural life without parole. Again, there's credit for 575 days that you've already served. There's a $68 state cost. The crime victim assessment fee has already been assessed. The court is going to assess a $450 public defender fee. Ms. Vander Aark, you have a right to file an application. Excuse me, you have a right to file an appeal. If you are unable to afford an attorney, one will be appointed to a public expense. The quest for the assistance of the lawyer must be made within 42 days from today's date. Clerk is handing you a form that you must complete and return to the court in that 42 days. Mr. Roberts. [00:48:21] Speaker 3: Judge, just briefly, I believe you did indicate you would order that $5,000 in restitution. [00:48:25] Speaker 2: Oh, I did. Thank you, Mr. Roberts. The court will order $5,000 in restitution at this time to the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services with the caveat that Mr. Johnson, you can certainly, after the documentation, you can certainly ask for a restitution hearing and to contest that amount. [00:48:45] Speaker 1: Thank you, Your Honor. [00:48:45] Speaker 2: Anything else for the record, Mr. Roberts? [00:48:47] Speaker 1: No, thank you, Judge. [00:48:48] Speaker 2: Mr. Johnson? Yes, sir. All right, we're adjourned. Thank you. [00:48:54] Speaker ?: Yes, sir. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.