CORAL SPRINGS, Fla. — A Broward Sheriff Fire Rescue lieutenant and his wife are accused of abusing their 12-year-old daughter and confining her to a room for years at a home in Coral Springs, authorities said.
Jennifer Kohnert, 45, and Joel Kohnert, 44, were arrested Tuesday and face one count of child abuse without great bodily harm, jail records show.
“They are devoutly religious. Their beliefs on various topics may not jibe with people in this courtroom, but this has been a lot of — I’m not going to say this case is predicated on, in my view — when you’ve allegedly got a 12-year-old child who is locked in a room for upwards of three years and is forced to urinate and defecate in the room and then clean it up with her clothes, that is not a religious issue, that is something else,” said Judge Corey Friedman in Broward bond court on Wednesday…