A 34-year-old Fairfield woman linked to a 2018 child abuse case likely will serve four months of supervised release after essentially being in “custody” for nearly five years after earlier pleading no contest to 10 charges of child cruelty, her defense attorney told The Reporter on Thursday.
While the attorneys in the case conferred with Solano County Superior Court Judge William J. Pendergast, Ina Aurelia Rogers sat quietly at the defense table during the morning session in Department 11.
Rogers was previously scheduled for a presentencing report and sentencing Thursday, but Pendergast, after speaking with the attorneys, ordered her to return at 8:30 a.m. Jan. 29 for formal sentencing in the Justice Center in Fairfield.
She is represented by Fairfield criminal defense attorney Barry K. Newman. Deputy District Attorney William P. Moser in recent years has led the prosecution following the departure of former Solano County Chief Deputy District Attorney Sharon Henry.
After the brief hearing, Newman said that Rogers would serve the four months “after spending five years in custody,” although his client had been released on her own recognizance some years ago.
Rogers – who on Dec. 16, 2019 pleaded no contest to nine felony counts and one misdemeanor count of willful cruelty to a child – has been scheduled and rescheduled for sentencing many times over the years.
Her no-contest pleas meant she did not admit guilt but stated, essentially, she would offer no defense.
Rogers has remained out of custody after Newman submitted a motion for her release and the judge granted it.
Before she pleaded, Rogers potentially faced up to six years in state prison and up to a $10,000 fine for a single felony charge alone.
She was arrested on April 3, 2018, and her husband, Jonathan Allen, several weeks later, on May 10, with the couple’s story making national headlines.
Allen – also 34 – pleaded no contest to 14 felony counts in the case on Aug. 18. He was later sentenced to 36 years 8 months and parole supervision for 10 years.
The crimes surfaced in March 2018, when one of their sons – who was 12 at the time and said to have the mental capacity of an 8-year-old – disappeared from the family’s Fieldstone Court residence.
Police were notified and searched the home as part of the investigation and found what they described as squalid, unsafe, and unsanitary living conditions, “including garbage and spoiled food on the floor, animal and human feces, and a large amount of debris making areas of the house unpassable,” according to wording in the Solano County District Attorney’s complaint.
Nine more children – ranging in age from 4 months to 11 years old at the time – were found inside. The missing boy was located soon afterward asleep under a nearby bush.
Some of the charges against Allen – multiple counts of child torture, child cruelty with possible injury, and lewd acts on a child – dated back to 2014.
During a preliminary hearing in December 2018, horrific allegations of torture, based on investigators’ findings, were heard in public for the first time. All directed at Allen — more than 10 of them, the maximum number posted on a public court calendar — they included physical abuse that left scars and cuts, evidence of choking, malnutrition, the use of duct tape and waterboarding, biting that drew blood, the shooting of sharp wooden sticks or small metal rods from a bow, the pouring of scalding hot water on a child’s feet. Allen also was charged with at least three counts of lewd acts on a child under 14.