When Angela Freiner lost custody of her teenage daughter last year, she sent an email to Judge Nicole Zellweger warning her of the consequences. Freiner’s language was perceived as threatening and she was charged with tampering with a judge.
While awaiting a criminal trial to be scheduled, prosecutors recommended, on Sept. 23, a 5-year suspended execution of sentence.
“It means the sentence is suspended pending a satisfactory completion of the probation term,” said Christopher King, public information officer for the St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office. "As for the defendant's custody rights, that is a matter for Family Court. Our office has no input or oversight in those proceedings."
Freiner plans to reject the offer even though the charge comes with punishment of up to seven years in prison.
“How could I possibly consider taking their recommendation when I haven't committed any crimes,” she said. “They're trying to act like they're doing me some favor when they're not. I'm better off going to trial with a jury of my peers to expose what's going on in family court. This is all out of retaliation.”
As previously reported in the St. Louis Record, Freiner’s daughter, Dalilah Judy, was released to her uncle David Judy’s custody and subsequently placed at Trinity Teen Solutions in Wyoming.
“What concerns me is the way they treat the girls there and the things they do to break down their spirit,” Freiner told the St. Louis Record. “It has been nearly two years since Dalilah has been isolated from me. She has experienced a complete separation from everything she has ever known.”
Trinity Teen Solutions was sued by a group of alumni from the program in a class action lawsuit.
“I've been watching these girls who have this class action lawsuit,” Feiner said. “They've been producing these videos about what they went through and how they just tortured them until they could get them to do whatever they wanted.”
Some 22 women who lived at the boarding school in Park County as teenagers between 2007 and 2020 allege hard labor and humiliating punishment at a cost of $6,000 a month, according to media reports.
“I don’t know where the money is coming from to do all this,” Freiner added. “She had a dirty drug test and I just know from testimony from the trial that Dalilah was sent there. They trafficked her and I haven't spoken to her in one year, seven months, and 23 days. My daughter and I had a perfectly fine healthy relationship. I never kept her from her dad. She always went every time he came to get her but they have done everything they can to erase me out of my daughter's life.”
Venus Jackson, guardian ad litem at the time Freiner lost custody of Dalilah, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
"If the defendant wishes to have her probation transferred out of state, the prosecution - that is, our office - would have no objection," King said of the recommendation offered to Freiner. "However, that will be a decision for the probation authorities to make."