Former Football Star, Wife, Denied Bond in Child Cruelty Case

Bond was denied Thursday for a former Georgia Tech football star and his wife, who are accused of locking their 13-year-old son in a small basement room for most of the past two years.

They said it was discipline.

Recardo Wimbush, 33, and Therian Wimbush, 37, were ordered to remain in the Gwinnett County jail on child cruelty and false imprisonment charges, the Gwinnett Daily Post reported. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution said the boy was the oldest of the couple’s 10 children.

The boy, who turned 14 this week, was kept away from his other nine siblings in a small room at the family’s Buford-area home, with only a mattress and box springs and a plastic container apparently used as a toilet, according to police.

Police said searches of the couple’s home on Pierce Way in Buford last month found the room had a hardwood floor, only a fitted sheet on the mattress and no bulb in the light fixture. The window was painted white, allowing some light into the room during the day.

The Post reported the case will move on to superior court. Attorneys for the couple told the court that religious beliefs were behind the supposed discipline, and that they believed an immunization triggered a change in the boy.

According to testimony reported by the Post, the boy apparently told a police investigator he was beaten as a 6- or 7-year-old for inappropriately touching three of his sisters and again a few years later for touching a younger brother’s “diaper.” The boy told the investigator a lock was placed on the basement room in January after he took a DVD player and book into the room and then lied about it.

Read more of the Post’s report here

Recardo Wimbush was a four-year starter at linebacker for Georgia Tech from 1999-2002, according the school’s athletics department website. Wimbush was on the Atlanta Falcons training camp roster at one point.