OAKLAND COUNTY, Mich. – An Oakland County mother accused of leaving her children to live alone in filthy conditions for years has allegedly violated a judge’s order not to contact her children or their caregiver.
Now, the prosecutor wants her communication privileges revoked.
Kelli Bryant, 34, of Pontiac, was charged with three counts of child abuse and police found her kids -- a 15-year-old boy, a 13-year-old girl, and a 12-year-old girl -- living alone in February after the landlord called for a welfare check.
On March 11, she was also charged with three counts of welfare fraud.
She is being held at the Oakland County Jail on a $50,000 bond.
Jail records show that Bryant called the caregiver 10 times from March 8 to March 12, to discuss the kids and the case, according to the Oakland County Prosecutor’s Office.
Bryant also allegedly had other inmates call the caregiver on her behalf.
This violates the bond condition set that she must not have any contact with her children or their caregiver.
“Kelli Bryant has clearly and repeatedly violated the judge’s order not to contact the victims or their caregiver,” said Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald. “That order is in place for an important reason – to protect the victims. The decision to ask that an inmate’s communications be restricted isn’t made lightly, but Bryant was repeatedly disobeying court orders and, by doing so, further endangering the victims.”
McDonald filed a motion on Friday, March 14, in the 50th District Court to revoke Bryant’s communication privileges for violating the court order.
If the motion is granted, Bryant will not be able to use a telephone, tablet, or video communications while she is in jail.
Click here to see all of our previous coverage of the case.
Judge Ronda M. Fowlkes Gross initially set her bond at $250 million, deeming her a flight risk, but that was dramatically reduced during a hearing on Friday, March 7.
The bond was reduced, with the following conditions:
- Bryant will be on pretrial services supervision.
- No alcohol or illegal drug use.
- No possession of a weapon.
- No assaultive conduct of any sort while the case is pending.
- No contact with any child under the age of 18 years old.
- Absolutely no contact with the victims in the case, including personal contact, phone calls, text messages, and reaching out to parties who have control of the children.
- A home confinement electronic monitoring device.
- Bryant can only leave home for medical emergencies, court appearances, court-ordered testing, and employment if it can be verified (it is not verified at this point).
- Any other travel requires permission from the court.
- No returning to the address where the children were found by police.
- No returning to the address of the victims.
- Any changes of address would have to be provided to the court within 24 hours.
This condition of having “absolutely no contact” with her kids or their caregiver was stressed initially by Gross and again by Judge Cynthia Thomas Walker when she reduced the bond.
After the kids were found, they were placed into the custody of a relative by CPS.
Bryant’s attorney filed a motion in response on Monday, March 17, and said that she didn’t know she was not allowed to contact the caregiver, which is her father.
They say that she didn’t contact her children directly, so it wasn’t a violation.
The defense also said that Bryant never received her bond conditions in writing, so she didn’t know that she wasn’t supposed to call her father.
