Guilty of imprisoning three daughters

TUCSON (KGUN9-TV) – Guilty of imprisoning their three daughters. That’s the verdict a jury reached today in the trial of Fernando and Sophia Richter.

In late November 2013, two of Sophia Richter’s three daughters climbed out a window of a home in mid town Tucson.  It was about 4 a.m. when they ran to a neighbor and said they had been held in the house, forbidden to step out of their rooms without permission.  They said they were watched on video cameras and had to signal for permission to leave their rooms to use the bathroom.  They said if permission didn’t come in time they relieved themselves in their closets.

They also said they were forced to eat nothing but a foul mixture of pasta and scraps.  The girls said the treatment reached back about two years counting time the family spent in a house in Pinal County.

Early in the trial, Fernando Richter’s attorney Paul Skitzki suggested the girls claims stemmed from their dislike of how their stepfather Fernando Richter, treated their mother. 

The girls bedroom doors were locked on their side of the door. They had no trouble unlocking and climbing out their window; but a child psychiatrist testified the three were psychological prisoners of their fear of their parents.

Fernando Richter did not testify but Sophia Richter did.  She said she never locked the girls in or ordered them to stay in their rooms and told the jury she served her daughters a variety of food that included fresh fruit every day.

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