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Ronald Jackson, above, of Grand Prairie, Texas, was found not guilty by a jury this week on charges related to him taking his daughter's cell phone away as punishment.

(Image from CBSDFW.com)

A Texas man was acquitted by a jury Tuesday after he had been arrested for taking away his daughter's cell phone as a punishment.

The ordeal started in September 2013. Ronald Jackson, 36, of Grand Prairie, Texas, found what he considered an inappropriate text on his 12-year-old daughter's cell phone, so he confiscated it, reports WFAA.com.

"I was being a parent. You know, a child does something wrong, you teach them what's right," Jackson tells CBSDFW.com. "You tell them what they did wrong and you give them a punishment to show that they shouldn't be doing that."

Just hours later, police arrived at his home, asking him to return the cell phone, an iPhone 4. Jackson refused.

"At that point, I decided the police don't interfere with my ability to parent my daughter," Jackson tells WFAA.

The mother of Jackson's daughter, Michelle Steppe, said she called police because she paid the bill for the phone and considered it her property. Steppe and Jackson were once a couple but never married.

"You can't take someone's property, regardless if you're a parent or not," Steppe told jurors, according to WFAA.

Dallas County Criminal Court Judge Lisa Green ordered the jury to find Jackson not guilty of theft of property of at least $50 but under $500, a Class B misdemeanor. Green said the prosecution did not present enough evidence to proceed with the case.

Jackson was arrested in April 2015 and handcuffed because he did not return the phone. He was released from jail after posting a $1,500 bond.

Grand Prairie Detective Lyle Gensler tells WFAA police would have preferred not to be involved with the dispute. Steppe is married to a Grand Prairie police officer, but the department insists that was not a factor in the case against Jackson.

"We do not like these kinds of instances to go into the criminal justice system," Gensler tells WFAA. "We prefer to keep it out and the phone be returned and let the parents, the two adults, and let them work it out among themselves."