WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — A Jupiter father accused of locking his adopted son in a box-like structure in the garage chose not to testify in his child abuse trial.
Defense attorney Prya Murad made the announcement Wednesday afternoon in court.
"He will not be testifying," she said.
Ferriter later affirmed the decision in front of Judge Howard Coates.
"Have you made a decision in this case whether to testify on your own behalf?" Coates asked Ferriter.
"I have," Ferriter answered.
"All right, and what is that decision, Mr. Ferriter?" Coates asked.
"To not testify," Ferriter said.
Ferriter, 48, is on trial facing charges of child abuse, false imprisonment and child neglect. His wife, Tracy Ferriter, is facing the same charges in a separate trial that hasn't yet begun.
Defense attorneys sought throughout the trial to portray Ferriter as a frustrated father whose poor parenting decision – banishing his teenage son to the 8x8 enclosure specially built for the boy in the garage of their Egret Landing home – was brought on by the child's long history of behavioral issues.
Dr. Sheila Rapa, a clinical and forensic psychologist, testified for the defense Tuesday that the teen had been diagnosed with reactive attachment disorder – a condition in which a child doesn't form a healthy emotional bond with his or her caretaker.
Rapa said the Ferriters' form of treatment likely exacerbated the teen's behavioral issues and was "against anything that we would ever tell someone to do therapeutically."
WATCH: Psychologist testifies for defense
However, she said she didn't believe the Ferriters caused the teen's issues or set out to abuse him.
"I don't believe that they were malicious in so far as they were deliberately trying to abuse and hurt their child," Rapa testified. "I think that they were responding to behaviors that they were very concerned about. … Did they do something appropriate? No. Did they handle it appropriately? No. But I don't think it was just an arbitrary, 'I'm going to abuse this child, be cruel to this child, for no reason.' I think in their mind they were trying to contain some behaviors and keep everybody safe in the process."
WATCH: Psychologist: 'I don't believe that they were malicious'
During the trial, prosecutors presented testimony from the teen, who described in detail what it was like being confined to the garage enclosure with just a desk, a mattress and a bucket in which to defecate. He testified that he was often there alone in the dark, isolated from his family without access to food, water or a bathroom, except in the morning before his parents let him out to go to school and at night before his parents went to bed.
Jurors watched hours and hours of Ring camera videos showing the interactions between the Ferriters and the teen, who was frequently berated by his father. In many of the videos, the teen could be heard screaming and talking to himself.
Defense attorneys countered by showing jurors hours' worth of videos depicting the teen with his family inside the house and seemingly happy.
After the jury returned Wednesday, Murad announced that the defense rests and closing arguments began.
'Anything but ordinary'
During closing arguments, Assistant State Attorney Brianna Coakley told jurors that the Ferriters appeared to be an ordinary family.
"But what has been established, what has been proven through the course of this case, is what was happening inside that house is anything but ordinary," Coakley said.
WATCH: Prosecutor says Ferriter family 'anything but ordinary'
She told jurors that the teen was "subjected to treatment by his parents, including his father, Timothy Ferriter, that was cruel, heinous and malicious."
"That under or behind the façade of an ordinary family, there was the treatment and isolation – the systematic isolation – and confinement of [the teen] when he was 14 years old in that room in their garage," Coakley continued. "And that's why we're here today. Because this – this treatment, this systemic way in which he was forced to live – is a crime."
Coakley reminded jurors of the teen's testimony, who said it was "dehumanizing" being forced to spend most of his days and nights inside the room, isolated from the rest of his family without food, water and access to a bathroom, as well as the testimony of the teen's adopted sister, who claimed her brother had been punished differently than the rest of the Ferriter children.
She also asked jurors to recall the testimony of Dr. Wade Myers, who testified for the state last week that the actions of the boy's parents were "malicious" and "cruel" and caused severe psychological trauma.
Coakley also focused on Tim Ferriter's intent, from not providing the boy with a bedroom in the home to hiring a contractor to build the 8x8 room, without windows, with a lock and deadbolt on the outside, lights that are controlled from the outside and no bathroom.
"Each one of those steps are intentional, specific, deliberate acts," Coakley said. "It's not an accident that this happened like this. We know exactly what he intended to do to his son. He set up the room. He put the camera in there and then he forced the child to use a bucket."
WATCH: Prosecutor says Tim Ferriter took 'intentional' steps to abuse son
Coakley replayed some videos to bolster her arguments, including one that showed Tim Ferriter berating his son for turning on the air-conditioning in the room.
"From the outside, everything looked OK, but what was happening inside that room was abuse," Coakley said.
She also reminded jurors of Murad's comment during her opening statements that the room had a design flaw — it was built without a bathroom.
"It's not a flaw," Coakley said. "These are intentional choices. This is what he wanted to happen. This is what the environment that he intentionally subjected his son to – an environment that no reasonable person would think was appropriate or acceptable."
Bad parenting or criminal acts?
When it was Murad's turn to make her closing arguments, she admitted to jurors that Tim Ferriter made poor parenting decisions.
WATCH: Defense attorney says Tim Ferriter's bad parenting choices not criminal
"There is not one moment that I want you to think that this defense is about whether or not [the teen] deserved the treatment that he got because it is not," Murad said. "Or that the fact that he is vulnerable or had medical issues from early childhood is justification for what happened because it is not. However, we are in a criminal courtroom, and what you have to determine is whether an act – a horrible act of parenting, a bad act of parenting, bad choices – amount to a crime. And in this case, they do not."
Murad tried to dispel the prosecution's narrative that the Ferriters were secretly keeping their son locked away. She said the Ferriters often kept the garage door open and hired a contractor to build the room.
"This is not some sort of secret," Murad said.
She also attempted to downplay the idea that the room was like a box.
"It's a room with a desk and a bed and toys and it has stuff on the walls until [the teen] took them out or they were taken away from him because he was in trouble," Murad said.
WATCH: Defense attorney says room in garage 'not some sort of secret'
Murad said the bucket was not "deprivation of a bathroom."
"It is a terrible solution to wanting to make sure that [the teen] in the middle of the night cannot get out of his room," Murad said. "Because as you heard Tim Ferriter say in the videos, he is running away, so much so that he needs to place a monitor on him so that he is not running away in the middle of the night, telling people that he's someone he's not and putting himself in danger."
Jury deliberations will begin Thursday morning.
