Kelli Bryant has been sentenced to between six and 30 years in prison after pleading no contest to three counts of first-degree child abuse over the abandonment of her children in a squalid Pontiac apartment.
The 35-year-old was sentenced on Tuesday by Judge Mary Ellen Brennan in Oakland County’s Sixth Circuit Court. She was given credit for 236 days already served.
Oakland County sheriff’s deputies found Bryant’s three children — a 15-year-old boy and girls aged 13 and 12 — living alone during a welfare check in February 2025.
Officials said the children had been left for several years in a home without running water or functioning toilets. The apartment contained rubbish, mould and human waste, while the children were not attending school and relied on food left at the door.
The children were placed in the care of a relative after they were discovered. Bryant’s parental rights were terminated in family court in April.
Prosecutor Karen McDonald said the plea agreement spared the children from having to testify at a public trial and would keep Bryant in prison until they were adults.
Before passing sentence, Judge Brennan told Bryant: “You failed them hour after hour, day after day, month after month and year after year.”
Bryant had previously pleaded no contest to welfare fraud charges arising from the investigation. She received a sentence of time served and two years’ probation in that case.
