Trial Postponed for Ankeny Parents Accused of Locking Their Adopted Children in a Basement

The trial for an Ankeny couple accused of locking their two adopted children in a basement for days at a time has been postponed, according to the Des Moines Register.

The trial of Paul Alan Drake, 45, and JoAnn Marie Drake, 44, was pushed back after plea negotiations failed to move as quickly as planned, the Register reported. Both Drakes had been scheduled to plead guilty to unspecified charges Tuesday morning to avoid a scheduled June 10 trial on felony counts of false imprisonment and neglect or abandonment of a dependent person.

Related: Ankeny Parents to Stand Trial Feb. 13 for Locking Kids in Basement

The couple is accused of reportedly locking their 13-year-old adopted daughter and 14-year-old adopted son in the basement for three to four weeks, feeding them under a locked door and allowing them out only to attend school, according to police reports.

Ankeny police records show officers made at least two dozen trips to the family's house since February to deal with two teens who allegedly abused their parents, a sibling, or had threatened to harm themselves.

Assistant Polk County Attorney Jaki Livingston asked Tuesday that the trial be postponed to September, because “we haven’t reached agreement to a plea at this time," the article said.

Livingston later told the Register negotiations are ongoing.

Friends and neighbors of the Drakes have told the media that the couple had been unable to find help from state agencies or the schools as the two teens acted out.

“It was a last resort that the parents were doing to try to create some kind of safety, some kind of order and semblance in the home,” friend and neighbor Maree Ulrich told the Register in an earlier report. “They were worried about the safety of the other kids and themselves.”

After news of the Drakes' arrests, the biological mother of the 13-year-old girl in the case told the media she never mistreated her daughter, but charged the adoptive parents have.

June Simpson, 36, of Truro told the Des Moines Register that her daughter told Simpson and others four years ago that JoAnn Drake had physically abused the girl while she was living as a foster child in the Drake home. A judge was among those the girl told about the alleged abuse, Simpson told the Register.