A U.S. court in the State of Colorado has sentenced foster parents of three teenage Russian girls to probation on child abuse charges, the Coloradoan newspaper said.
Steven and Edelwina Leschinsky "avoided jail time after a plea deal with prosecutors that involved cutting all ties with the girls, who were aged 12, 13 and 14 when the charges were filed," the paper said on Friday.
According to prosecution, the Russian girls were punished daily by their foster parents in a variety of cruel ways, "such as performing hundreds of push-ups over a nail-spiked board, running 45 miles in three days and getting choked to the point of vomiting with water from a garden hose."
The couple pleaded guilty in May to three misdemeanor charges of child abuse.
As part of the plea deal, they will have to comply with a variety of probation requirements, including 400 hours of community service for the next four years, the paper said.
The United States and Russia have been negotiating an agreement on the safety of Russian children adopted by U.S. families since 2010.
Russia suspended adoptions last year after a Tennessee woman sent her 7-year-old adoptive son back to Russia. He was put on a plane on his own with a note from the woman saying she did not want him as he was "psychotic."
Russia's ombudsman for children's rights Pavel Astakhov said earlier in the year that 17 Russian children have died in the United States as a result of child abuse since adoptions began more than 15 years ago.
The latest official figures show that about 60,000 children born in Russia have been adopted by families in the United States.
