COLORADO SPRINGS — Prosecutors charged the adoptive parents of two missing brothers with theft, forgery and other crimes Thursday as authorities searched for the children, who disappeared in 2003 without anyone reporting they were gone.
Edward Bryant, 58, and Linda Bryant, 54, are accused of collecting nearly $175,000 in government payments for the care of the boys, even though the children haven’t been in their household for years. They entered no pleas to the charges in their first court appearance Thursday.
Authorities didn’t learn that Austin Eugene Bryant and his biological brother, Edward Dylan Bryant, had disappeared until this year. El Paso County sheriff’s investigators say the Bryants told them the boys had run away by 2003, when Austin would have been 7 and Edward 11. The Bryants have not been charged in the boys’ disappearance.
The Bryants adopted the boys in 2000 in Colorado. The couple later moved to Texas, where they were arrested. They were returned to Colorado last month.
Thursday’s hearing was largely procedural. Edward Bryant’s attorney, Sheilagh McAteer, indicated she would ask for a reduction in his $1 million bail at a preliminary hearing June 17.
Linda Bryant also is being held on $1 million bail. Philip Dubois, the attorney representing her Thursday, didn’t indicate whether a bail reduction would be sought. Her preliminary hearing was set for April 12.
McAteer didn’t immediately return a phone call after the hearing. Dubois said he was filling in for another attorney, Sarah Christensen, and referred calls to her. She didn’t immediately return a message.
Investigators have conducted at least one search at the Bryants’ former home northwest of Colorado Springs.
