by Michael Allen
Father and son Timothy and Esten Ciboro, who are charged with abusing and molesting children, announced Jan. 20 in Toledo, Ohio, that they want to use the Bible as their legal defense.
Lucas County Common Pleas Judge Linda Jennings ruled that the men will be allowed to bring their Bible to their trial, in which they will be representing themselves.
The two men are charged with several counts of "rape, kidnapping, and endangering children for allegedly abusing children in their care," notes The Toledo Blade.
Esten told Jennings that the Bible is "the only law book that truly matters," and added: "There's a great deal of strategy in Scripture and I use those strategies in everything I do."
There's their problem right there! They see the Bible as a Law book when, in fact, it is a revelation of God and His grace.
Jennings agreed to allow the father and son to place a Bible on their defense table in court during their trial.
One of their alleged victims is a 13-year-old girl who told authorities that she was chained in a basement inside the Ciboro home.
The teen escaped the home in May 2016, noted WNWO.
The girl, donned in unkempt hair and clothes, was discovered by Karen Loudermill, who asked the young lady where her parents were.
The girl said that she had a dad, "but he's not my biological dad. Mom is in Las Vegas." She went on to say: "We [are] on a point system. 50 points, get punished, shackled to basement." The teen said she had lived in the home with her stepfather since 2012.
Loudermill noticed the shackles on the teen's feet and convinced the girl to come inside her workplace. The child asserted that Esten, her stepbrother, punished her when she was shackled in the basement.
The girl (along with a brother and sister) was placed in the custody of Lucas County Children Services, while Timothy and Esten were arrested.
The girl's mother, Stafonda Hawkins, was also arrested in May 2016, reported WTOL.
Hawkins was picked up in Toledo by the U.S. Marshals Northern Ohio Violent Fugitive Task Force for allegedly violating her parole, which was issued in November 2015.
According to police, Hawkins and her young son were living with an unidentified family member.
Mother of girl allegedly held captive arraigned
on unrelated charges;
By WTOL Staff May 26, 2016
Stafonda Hawkins cried in court as she waited to be arraigned. (Source: WTOL)
Stafonda Hawkins, the mother of a 13-year-old girl who Toledo police say was held captive for a year in a house on Noble Street was arraigned in Toledo Municipal Court on Thursday on charges unrelated to the case.
On Friday, she was appeared before the Sylvania Municipal Court via video on charges of writing bad checks. She will be sentenced for those charges on June 6.
The girl's step-father and step-brother, Timothy and Esten Ciboro, have both been indicted on charges of kidnapping and endangering children and are scheduled to be arraigned in Lucas County Common Pleas Court in early June.
Stafonda Hawkins has been booked in the Lucas County Jail for a probation violation from 2009 after she left Ohio and reportedly began a life in Las Vegas.
It’s unclear if she’ll face any charges in connection with her daughter’s case.
Hawkins oldest sister, Shirley Noble, was in court Friday and spoke to WTOL 11 about the case.
She says she thought the house was vacant, because she used to drive by and never saw the kids.
"I thought they had moved, so I stopped going by there," she said.
Noble says she doesn't understand how someone could do what the Ciboro's allegedly did to a child, and that this could have all been avoided.
"Out of all the things in the world, why would you do to a little kid when you could of took her somewhere and give her to somebody. Take her downtown and if you don't want her no more, just took them downtown and just say I can't handle this," said Noble.
She says if there's truth in all of this, she wants justice for her niece.
"I want them to be punished, because that's not right," she said. "If they don't get punished, somebody going to hurt them."
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