Alaska Mom On Trial For Punishing Child With Hot Sauce
Jessica Beagley of Anchorage, AL was charged with misdemeanor child abuse on Wednesday after jurors watched a video that aired on the Dr. Phil show earlier this year showing her pouring hot sauce in her adopted son’s mouth and then forcing him to take a cold shower as discipline for misbehaving in school.
The video was submitted to the show by Beagley herself in an effort to get help with dealing with the child, but after the show aired angry viewers contacted authorities.
“In this case here, this woman has evidently got some anger management issues by the way she’s handling that event with that small child,” said Major Rob Bullara, of the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office after watching the video. “It is very disturbing to look at due to the shear fear that she places in that child, which would also be, obviously, considered by a prosecutor or law enforcement to bring charges toward.”
“They’re good people caught up in a bad situation,” Peter Ramgren, Beagley’s attorney, stated. “Child Protective Services has done a complete investigation and found no evidence of abuse of the other children…if they believed it was a dangerous situation they would have removed the children.”
The 5-year-old boy and his twin brother were adopted by the Beagley family after being in a Russian orphanage for three years.
Beagley was not present at her arraignment and a plea of not guilty was entered on her behalf by her attorneys.
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