Courtesy of ID/YouTube (2)
Inside Natalia Grace’s Former Adoptive Parents Michael and Kristine Barnett’s Money Woes
Natalia Grace Barnett’s former adoptive parents, Michael Barnett and his ex-wife, Kristine Barnett, have a history of money issues, In Touch can exclusively confirm.
According to records obtained by In Touch, the ex-spouses have multiple state tax liens against them dating back to the year 2003 – seven years before they adopted Natalia.
In 2003, the then-couple had a state lien tax of $104. The following year, Kristine’s company The London Bridge had a state lien tax of $39. The Florida resident’s other business, Acorn Hill Academy, had a $580 state lien tax in 2008 and a $217 tax in 2010.
In 2012, both Kristine and Michael had a state lien tax of $522.
The Barnett family has made headlines recently after Michael appeared in the ID network docuseries, The Curious Case of Natalia Grace. The three-part documentary gave viewers his perspective from when he and Kristine adopted Natalia in April 2010.
“You’re gonna get the truth,” he said in episode 1 of the show. “I will pre-warn you, you might not like the truth. … We had no idea what we were dealing with.”
After bringing Natalia home in 2010, the Barnetts alleged that they began to notice disturbing behavior from the Ukraine native. They attributed the former orphan’s demeanor and physicality to her rare form of dwarfism called spondyloepiphyseal dysplasia congenita (SEDc), which they claimed allowed Natalia to pose as a 6-year-old child while actually being an adult.
Among Michael and Kristine’s claims include Natalia attempting to stab him, Kristine and their sons — Jacob, Wesley and Ethan — in their sleep, trying to poison Kristine’s coffee and pushing her into an electric fence.
Two years later, Michael and Kristine petitioned to have Natalia’s birth date changed from 2003 to 1989. In 2013, the Barnetts moved to Canada and left Natalia alone in a rental apartment in Indiana.
Despite having her birth year legally changed, both Michael and Kristine were charged with several counts of neglect of a dependent in the state of Indiana in September 2019. However, Michael was found not guilty during his October 2022 trial, and his charges were dismissed. Kristine’s charges were also dropped three weeks before her trial was scheduled to begin in March 2023.
The Barnetts’ case has captivated true crime viewers, as many have compared the story to the 2009 horror movie Orphan. Many are divided over who to believe, though, as some fans have sided with the Barnetts while others continue to support Natalia. Little People, Big World star Matt Roloff expressed his support for her when he promoted the GoFundMe that her new adoptive mother, Cynthia Mans, created.
The world will get to hear Natalia’s side of the story in ID’s upcoming docuseries, The Curious Case of Natalia Grace: Natalia Speaks, which is set to air in the late summer of 2023.
“It’s very frustrating to hear everything that’s being said from Kristine and Michael because I already don’t know who I am, and I want to know who I am, what happened to me,” she said in a trailer for the show. “But I’m hearing all this stuff that never actually happened from Kristine and Michael.”
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