Oakland County Circuit Judge Mary Ellen Brennan sentenced Kelli Bryant to two years of probation for welfare<\/a>. <\/p>\nBryant had previously pleaded no contest to three counts of welfare fraud in December.<\/p>\n
\u201cWelfare fraud, with the financial damage being over $500, that you be placed on probation for a period of two years. That you serve 112 days in the Oakland County Jail, credit for 112 days,\u201d Brennan said in court.<\/p>\n
The welfare fraud case is tied to accusations that Bryant continued to collect public assistance benefits for her children after allegedly leaving them alone.<\/p>\n
Bryant, who appeared in court shackled, also learned Wednesday that she has been found competent to stand trial on three counts of first-degree child abuse.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ll see you Monday, Aug. 24, for trial,\u201d Brennan said, setting a date toward the end of the summer for the child abuse case.<\/p>\n
Bryant is accused of abandoning her three children and leaving them in a rental home in what investigators called squalor.<\/p>\n
The Oakland County Sheriff\u2019s Office has said the children survived primarily on weekly DoorDash and Instacart deliveries after allegedly being left alone since 2020 or 2021. <\/p>\n
They were discovered last year after the landlord requested a welfare check, stating that Bryant was behind on rent and had not contacted him in months.<\/p>\n
Attorney and former judge Vonda Evans, who is not involved in the case, said both prosecutors and the defense could face significant challenges at trial.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is going to be an uphill battle,\u201d Evans said.<\/p>\n
She noted that while Bryant has been found competent, meaning she understands the charges and the court proceedings, mental health issues could still be brought up by the defense.<\/p>\n
\u201cA competency finding only determines whether you know what you\u2019re being charged with and that you are being charged in a court,\u201d Evans said. \u201cWhat I do surmise will be an issue are mental health issues that will say she did not, she could not knowingly or intentionally cause this.\u201d<\/p>\n
In addition to probation and time served, Bryant was ordered to pay more than $29,000 in restitution related to the welfare fraud case.<\/p>\n
She is expected to return to court in August for trial on the first-degree child abuse charges.<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 by WDIV ClickOnDetroit – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PONTIAC, Mich. \u2013 A Pontiac woman accused of abandoning her children and leaving them in what officials described…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":365505,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[143,904,145,144,3131,44599],"class_list":["post-365504","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-county","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news","tag-pontiac","tag-pontiac-child-abandonment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365504","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=365504"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365504\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/365505"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=365504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=365504"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=365504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}