RED WING, Minnesota — A Red Wing couple has been sentenced to four years in prison for child abuse.
Benjamin and Christina Cotton, ages 42 and 39, were sentenced Friday by a Goodhue County judge.
The couple was arrested in June 2023 and charged with two counts of child torture, seven counts of neglect of a child and seven counts of malicious punishment of a child.
Benjamin and Christina Cotton each entered into a plea deal in September, dismissing all charges except one count of child molestation, court records show.
Case details
According to the criminal complaint, Goodhue County Health and Human Services received a report last August regarding the safety of the Cotton couple’s four children, all of whom were under the age of 10 at the time. The caller noted “recent erratic behavior” from Christina Cotton, and that the children had been subjected to “forms of extreme punishment” such as confinement in cages.
The next morning, a Red Wing police detective and a social worker went to the Cotton residence in Red Wing to conduct a welfare check on the four children.
Christina Cotton opened the door and let them both in. When they said they were there because of a report of her children being in cages, she told them they were “locked for their safety,” according to the complaint. She then sent them to a bedroom down the hall where three of the four children were located.
In the bedroom, they found a toddler, nearly three years old, trapped in a playpen covered by what appeared to be a dog gate, the complaint said.
Also in the bedroom was a bunk bed, designed for small children, that had been “converted into a real bunk,” including a makeshift wooden door. There were two children aged 5 and 7 in the bottom bed.
The investigator and social worker then checked on the 9-year-old, who was in a basement bedroom. That child was not caged or confined in any way.
Christina Cotton reportedly said the children were kept in a cage to prevent them from dying because door alarms and child-proof locks would not work. She said the children were only locked up at night and in cages only because she woke up late, according to the complaint.
All four children were removed from the home and medically examined. The youngest child was wearing a diaper that was duct taped to the skin. The other three children appeared to have extensive bruising, the complaint said.
The children reported multiple instances of abuse. One child reported being hit by a belt when chores were not done and having his hands tied behind his back with duct tape. The 9-year-old told officials that their parents “don’t want them to talk about problems” and that they want to “keep it within the family.”
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