Is Kristine Barnett in Jail? Here’s What Happened After She Was Charged for Neglecting Natalia Grace
She might be played by the incomparable Ellen Pompeo in Good American Family, but Kristine Barnett is keeping a low-key profile ever since her adoption controversy. As the mom of Natalia Grace, she’s been accused of being a ‘monster’ by her adoptive daughter and her ex-husband.
Natalia Grace, a Ukrainian-born girl with a rare form of dwarfism, was adopted by Kristine Barnett and her husband Michael in 2010, but the couple soon came to believe that instead of being a child, she was actually an adult with psychiatric issues intent on deceiving them.
Kristine and Michael Barnett moved Natalia Grace to an apartment by herself in 2013 and then left the country for Canada. They also successfully petitioned the court to change her birth date from 2003 to 1989. Prosecutors investigating the neglect case later found evidence that supported the 2003 birth date, including Natalia Grace’s birth mother, meaning Natalia Grace was only 10 years old when she was left to live on her own.
The couple went on major media shows like Good Morning America to accuse their adopted daughter of trying to conspire to murder them and other tactics that prove that she was an adult. They were later charged with neglect once the facts started to come out.
Is Kristine Barnett in jail?
Kristine Barnett served time in jail before her supposed trial but she was charged with multiple counts of neglecting a dependent in Sept. 2019 alongside her ex-husband Michael. The charges were dismissed just less than three weeks before her trial was set to start. The charges were dismissed with prejudice, meaning Kristine can’t be charged again for the same thing. Michael’s charges were dropped after the jury acquitted him.
“For people wondering if I have been to jail, yes,” Kristine wrote on Facebook in 2024. “I was booked into the Tippecanoe County Jail. I faced charges and these same allegations at that time.”
“It was a case that should not have been brought,” Kristine continued, saying that she and her ex-husband Michael had been charged with “various levels of causing bodily harm to Natalia due to these allegations.”
“If there had been any abuse of Natalia or evidence of it, I would have been found guilty of it and I would be in jail,” she added. “The fact that these false allegations are occurring after a trial with evidence which was dismissed is disturbing . It’s like being assumed guilty after being proven innocent.”
Where is Kristine Barnett now?
Kristine Barnett currently lives in Florida and keeps herself out of the spotlight since the charges were dropped. She has talked about Natalia Grace after the documentary The Curious Case of Natalia Grace: Natalia Grace. “Natalia was a very much loved and cared for member of my family,” she wrote. “She was not abused by anyone in my family. If there had been any abuse of Natalia or evidence of it, I would have been found guilty of it, and I would be in jail.”
“I believe Natalia takes advantage of that sympathy to manipulate people,” she continued. “I believe this because I sat through numerous hospital visits and therapy visits trying to understand and help Natalia and thinking we might be able to find the root of the issue. In the end, I learned she is a sociopath.”
She ends her post by saying that she is not Natalia’s or Michael’s “monster,” as Michael claimed in the docuseries. “Michael Barnett and Natalia Barnett may have the same monster, but that monster is not me,” Kristine writes. “That monster, whether it’s mental illness, sociopathy, or whatever it actually is, may be different for each of them. But it’s within their own psyche.”
