Kate Gosselin’s lawyer has something to say after the reality star’s estranged son, Collin, accused his mother of serious abuse.
In disturbing allegations revealed to The Sun, Collin alleged his mother had placed him in a “room multiple times” when he was a child and “zip-tied my hands and feet together and bolt locked the door, turned the lights off and had cameras there just watching me.”
Richard Puelo, Kate’s attorney, said his client would not be responding to these latest allegations.
“She never wants to comment because she always knows that this gets taken out of context,” Puleo told Fox News Digital. “She doesn’t want to comment. Doesn’t need to. The record speaks for itself.”
“The facts belie the truth,” he continued. “Whatever took place, the ones that are truthful are the ones that took place… She has no comment because it’s not going to change the past. And I don’t believe she intentionally harmed any of her children in any way, shape or form.”
On Tuesday, Collin praised his father for helping him escape the alleged years of abuse he endured at the hands of his mother.
On Instagram, Collin wrote, “It has taken me a long time to find the strength needed to speak about my mother’s abuse. I have finally found my voice, and I hope to be the voice for children everywhere facing abuse. It is never OK. Your story can be told, just like mine.”
“As well, I wish to bring attention to the system that failed me as a child, and hopefully, in turn, it will help others,” Collin wrote.
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“Seeing pictures of my younger self is still incredibly difficult, but today I feel a small sense of justice by speaking it.”
“I’d like to thank my father for fighting so hard to obtain custody of me, and saving me from the institution where I was wrongfully committed. Thank you dad. And thank you to The Sun for sharing my story.”
Jon showed support for his son by sharing Collin’s statement on his own Instagram story.
Collin claims that his childhood was different from his brothers and sisters, and that his mother allegedly repeatedly abused him.
“My mother at many, many times, and most of the time became physically aggressive, verbally, very abusive with the things she would say,” Collin told The Sun. “And obviously that carries over to the emotional side of things where a young child doesn’t know any better, so it was a very, very emotionally abusive relationship.”
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He claimed that his reality star mom had a room built in the “storage basement” specifically for Collin. “She had a room put up with cameras in it, a tiny window in the corner and it was bolt-locked from the outside,” Collin alleged.
“So this, it was like a containment room, literally, and it had a mattress on the floor and that’s how I lived. And I was there, you know, most of the day because I didn’t go to school after a certain point. So most of the day I was in that room and I was away from my siblings and I never really went outside.
“I never played with them. I was kept there. It was literally containment,” he further alleged.
Jon said he later confirmed with the new home-owners that the basement room was still there. “My friends’ in-laws bought our house, and one time they asked me, ‘Why is there a room in the basement with a bed and a lock on the outside?'” he said. “It must have been terrifying for him.”
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In late August, Collin revealed to Entertainment Tonight that he had been discharged from the Marines because he was previously institutionalized. Puelo does not believe any comments previously made by Kate, like saying she had placed her son in a “facility,” had anything to do with his dismissal.
“Whether they relied upon his mother’s statements, I doubt it,” Puleo told Fox News Digital. “I think they relied upon the actual history of the individual, that he had some difficulty. And if he wants to deny he had difficulty, you don’t have to talk to too many people.”
“When you’ve got seven other children that you’re worried about their security and yourself, you do certain things…[He’s trying to] blame [Kate] for him being expelled from the military. That’s a stretch and a blame that [isn’t] deserved.”
“I’ve been practicing law for 43 years… I can assure you that if she was harassing or abusing her child, given her public exposure, the authorities would have taken the time and removed him from the family and put him in special services and would have probably had [Kate] charged with abuse. None of that happened,” Puelo noted.
“Jon & Kate Plus 8,” the family’s reality show that propelled them to becoming a household name, aired on TLC from 2007-09, when the former couple divorced. One year later, the show was rebranded as “Kate Plus 8,” which ran until 2017. Following his parents’ split, Collin allegedly began to act out and rebel during filming, sometimes giving “completely silent interviews” and refusing to interact.
Collin was allegedly diagnosed with a behavioral disorder, and at 12-years-old, Kate sent him to the Fairmount Behavioral Health System — a psychiatric hospital located in Philadelphia.
Jon eventually gained custody of Collin as well as his sister Hannah. “I never found out about her [Kate] singling out Collin, and the basement and the zip ties, until way afterwards. That kind of thing didn’t happen until after I left,” Jon told The Sun.
“I didn’t hear about that until Hannah told me about it, once I got custody of Hannah. I think once Hannah knew she was safe and not going back to mom’s she felt she could tell me.
“At that point Collin was institutionalized. He also started opening up to the doctor there and then because I became the legal parent, then they started telling me what he was telling the therapist and stuff. And it all matched up with what Hannah said.”
