A Missouri foster mother, Brenda Deutsch, 70, avoided prison after being accused of trading a teenage foster child for a monkey, prompting a judge to call her actions reprehensible and to apologise to her alleged victims for a foster care system he said had failed them. Lincoln County Judge Thomas Frawley sentenced Deutsch to seven years for child endangerment but suspended the sentence, placing her on three years' probation instead, while also revoking her foster care licence and criticising the state for allowing her to keep it. The case matters because it raises questions about oversight failures in Missouri's foster care system, given Deutsch reportedly fostered more than 200 children.

Deutsch was arrested in April after investigators alleged she sent the then-teenage girl, now 17, to stay with a friend in an unsanitary Texas home filled with exotic animals, of which Deutsch admitted knowing nothing. Court documents said the girl told investigators Deutsch had arranged for the friend to keep her while Deutsch kept an associated payment, and described alleged physical abuse including beatings with a paddle and shoes and a death threat. Deutsch's biological daughter, Brina Johnson, who testified about the alleged abuse and said Deutsch had kept several monkeys, expressed disappointment at the sentence but said the judge's acknowledgement of systemic failure offered some validation.