On April 23, 2005, Blair Parker called 911 because his 3-year-old daughter seemed to be having a seizure.

Doctors in the emergency room found that the girl was emaciated - she weighed just 13 pounds - and they asked to examine Parker's other two children.

His 11-year-old daughter was the size of a 5-year-old, and his 9-year-old son was the size of a 3-year-old. All of the children had been fed a diet that Parker and his wife misguidedly believed was a proper vegan diet, meaning that they eschewed all meat and fish and even dairy products.

Parker, 38, of Scottsdale, and his wife were arrested and criminally charged.

On Thursday, a Maricopa County Superior Court jury convicted Parker of two counts of negligent child abuse and one count of reckless child abuse, but acquitted him of the more serious offense of intentional child abuse.

The jury also found aggravating circumstances that could earn him as much as 16 years in prison when he is sentenced on Aug. 14 by Judge Roland Steinle. But Parker could also be sentenced to probation, which is likely given his lack of a criminal record.

His wife, Kimu Parker, 38, did not fare as well.

In August 2007 she was sentenced to 30 years in prison after a jury found her guilty of three counts of intentional child abuse. The judge in the case made a record in her file that he found the mandated sentence to be "excessive."

And though the judge acknowledged that the parents nearly starved the children to death, he felt that they obviously cared for their children. However, he said that their diet was "improperly administered over a period of years based on a recklessly misguided understanding of what was appropriate."

Kimu Parker is appealing her conviction.

Blair Parker's trial began in late May, and Parker himself took the witness stand to defend his dietary beliefs, which he had gained through his university studies of nutrition.

He described a daily regimen with the children that included prayer, study, chores, exercise and rigid adherence to diet, right down to what liquids they could drink and when.

"My children might have been short and light in weight, but I never considered they were unhealthy," he told the jury.

Parker claimed that he could not find a doctor of his own religious faith or dietary beliefs that he trusted. Instead, he consulted with a naturopath who lived in Washington state and who could not actually see or examine the children.

Parker still claims that the children suffered from "malabsorption," an inability to absorb vital nutrients.

The prosecutor said that Parker obsessed about the children's bowel movements and gave them enemas that further impeded absorbing any nutrients of the food they ate.

"Vegan children who are fed properly grow," said Deputy County Attorney Frankie Grimsman.

And in fact, when the children were placed in foster homes, they immediately began to gain weight - while still maintaining vegan diets.

Grimsman contended that the Parkers hid their children's condition by home-schooling them and by holding religious services in their home rather than attend church. And she claimed that they failed to seek medical care for the children until faced with an emergency.

Parker's defense attorney, Thomas Glow, maintained that Parker was mistaken in his dietary beliefs and at worst negligent in his adherence to them.

"What about the people who feed their kids McDonald's and they develop teenage diabetes?" he asked during his closing arguments.

And Glow pointed to the education the children received at home and the manners they were taught as evidence that the Parkers cared about their children.

Kimu Parker is in prison; she and Blair Parker both had their parental rights severed from the two younger children. The court allowed them to keep a fourth child who was born to them during the severance proceedings.

That child, a healthy 2-year-old boy, frequently lunched with Blair Parker in the courthouse cafeteria during the trial - in plain view of whatever jurors also lunched there. Glow denied it was a strategy to show that Blair Parker had learned his lesson. Rather, Glow said, it reflected Parker's desire to spend as much time as possible with his son because he faced the possibility of 30 years in prison, like his wife.

Parker wept openly at the verdict when he learned that would not be his fate.