PALMER — George Long is guilty of abusing a child by chaining him to a dog run, but a judge acquitted Long and his wife on other charges related to a sensational 2004 abuse case.

George and Shirley Long are parents of Sherry Kelley who, along with her husband, Patrick Kelley, was the target of a child abuse case that shocked the Mat-Su. Five foster children were taken from the Kelleys in 2004 and the Kelleys charged with nearly 100 counts of child abuse, neglect and kidnapping.

The Kelleys were sentenced in 2006 to time served in jail, but not before prosecutors laid bare the evidence against them, including allegations from the children that they’d been beaten regularly, locked in a box, tied to a tree and thrown in a pond. On Tuesday, Judge William Estelle sided with defense attorneys in the case against the Longs who argued that the charge of failing to report a serious assault on a child should be thrown out. Estelle said he sided with the motion for acquittal on two points. First, to be a witness one must actually be present when a crime is committed.

The state alleged one of the Kelleys’ boys was badly burned and that Sherry Kelley’s failure to properly treat the child amounted to a serious assault, defined as one causing serious injury or disfigurement.

But, Estelle said, there was nothing to prove the Longs had been present for that assault.

The second point the judge said he took issue with was in classifying the failure to treat the boy as an assault.

“Basically, the delay in medical treatment caused that young man four months of extreme pain,” Estelle said.

But there was no evidence, not even from doctors who treated him, that the delay in seeking medical attention caused any additional serious injury or disfigurement.

Even as he ruled to acquit the Longs of the charge, Estelle seemed to be lecturing them. He compared living conditions on the Misty Lake-area property as akin to a prison camp and the treatment of the children as worse than that generally afforded to dogs.

“There are, in fact, three or four other crimes that you could have been charged on,” Estelle told the Longs.

And that, Estelle said, was his worry. The jury, having heard all of the horrible things done to the children, might decide to overlook the fact that the particular crime charged was not supported by the evidence and instead vote for conviction.

“They would probably convict you in a heartbeat because it’s repulsive,” Estelle said.

Having dismissed the charge of failure to report a serious assault of a child, one charge remained in the case — that George Long himself assaulted one of the boys by wrapping a chain around his neck and chaining him to a dog run.

Defense attorney John Pharr argued that chaining the boy up was a snap decision, probably not the right one, but done in a moment of haste to get the boy out of harm’s way as his siblings were picking on him.

The incident was brief, Pharr argued, and the boy could have reached up and unhooked himself.

Prosecutor Rachel Gernat had a different interpretation.

“It was just another assault in a string of assaults that happened on that property,” Gernat argued.

She pointed out George Long had many other options. He could have sent the boy inside his home or inside a greenhouse. He could have sent him to sit on a nearby swing. Gernat said Long tied up the boy not to protect him, but to punish him for dragging a hose through the Longs’ potato patch.

The jury of three men and three women, after an afternoon’s deliberation Thursday, agreed with the prosecutor.

“The state is happy with the verdict and believe[s] it lends credibility to the children’s testimonies and also the living conditions endured by them,” Gernat wrote in a post-verdict communication. “The verdict shows that, at least regarding George Long, he was partially responsible for some of the abuse.”

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.