After the 12-year-old Utah boy tried to run away in July, his mother, vlogger Ruby Franke, bound his hands and feet with two sets of handcuffs.
The momfluencer further admitted in a 10-page plea agreement reviewed by PEOPLE that she had kicked her son, Russell, held his head under water and covered his mouth and nose with her hands so he could not breathe.
On Tuesday, Ruby received four separate prison sentences for 1 to 15 years, which will run consecutively, according to TODAY, KSL 5 and KUTV. The length of each prison sentence will ultimately be decided by the Utah Board of Pardons and Parole, according to Utah’s Deseret News. However, The women will not serve more than 30 years due to a Utah law regarding consecutive sentences, Business Insider reports.
Therapist and Ruby’s ex-business partner Jodi Hildebrandt – who Ruby claims directed the abuse – received the same sentence as Ruby, according to the outlets, after they both pleaded guilty to four counts of aggravated child abuse. Both women signed plea agreements to the four second-degree felonies in December, acknowledging their roles in the abuse and relinquishing their right to appeal their convictions.
Under the plea agreement, two more charges of aggravated child abuse for each woman were dropped, Tania Mashburn, a spokeswoman for Utah State Courts, confirms to PEOPLE. At a December hearing in which Ruby – cuffed and dressed in gray and white prison garb – pleaded guilty to the remaining charges, she paused on the fourth charge, per CBS News.
Taking a deep breath, per the outlet, she shut her eyes and said: “With my deepest regret and sorrow for my family and my children, guilty.”
Around that time, Winward Law, the firm representing her, issued a statement to CBS News, alleging that Ruby had been made to believe that Hildebrandt “had the insight to offer a path to continual improvement.” In reality, the firm claimed that Hildebrandt “took advantage of this quest and twisted it into something heinous.”
About two months later, Ruby returned to court Tuesday morning for a sentencing hearing that precluded what otherwise promised to be a high-profile trial, outlining the rise and fall of a woman who had built her career on giving parenting advice to her 2.5 million YouTube followers.