commentary by Patrick H. Moore
I’m always amazed by how self-serving we humans are. And I’m just as bad as anybody else. But one thing I probably wouldn’t do is feed my kid hot sauce in order to get on “Dr. Phil”. I’ve got three good reasons:
- For some visceral irrational reason I’m not a Dr. Phil fan. Maybe it’s his moustache.
- I probably wouldn’t know where to find the hot sauce.
- For all my faults, I wouldn’t want to torture my kid. (Like most married guys, I rather torture my wife. NOT!)
Jessica Beagley of Anchorage had no such compunctions. She clearly liked “Dr. Phil, she knew where the hot sauce was and she didn’t mind torching the kid with the fiery red paste to draw attention to herself. She also was partial to the cold shower routine. Scary combination.
Nina Mandell of the New York Daily News writes:
A mom who fed her son hot sauce to get on the “Dr. Phil” show received three years of probation and must continue to attend counseling.
Jessica Beagley shocked viewers on the popular talk show last November when a tape showed her force-feeding her son hot sauce and putting him into a cold shower for misbehaving at school. She was charged with misdemeanor child abuse and prosecutors said that she did it only to meet the talk-show host. A jury found her guilty earlier this month.
On Monday, Judge David Wallace gave her a suspended sentence of 180 days in jail and a suspended $2,500 fine, the Anchorage Daily News reported.
“You’re not a danger to the public,” the judge told her, according to the newspaper. “I think you committed a one-time act to get on a TV show.”
We know Beagley “burnt” her son’s throat for the express purpose of getting on Dr. Phil. The combo 180 days suspended sentence and the suspended $2,500 fine sends no message at all other than that Beagley will get remanded into custody if she acts up again. I can perhaps understand not putting this creepy mom in jail, but there’s a little thing called COMMUNITY SERVICE and she should get hit hard. Say 1,000 hours. Ten hours a week for 100 weeeks giving back to the community. It will be good for her and it will send the proper message.
Needless to say, the prosecutors painted Beagley as a fame-hungry mom who unnecessarily punished her adopted Russian son to get on the show. The video, which was filmed by her daughter, was aired on a Nov. 17 segment called “Mommy Confessions.”
The fact that her son she “tortured” was adopted pisses me off even more. I have an adopted child and know the solicitude (my new favorite word) that is needed when raising one. Beagley’s act displayed a blatant disregard not just for the need to be kind to her son; it reveals a lack of everyday consideration and raises the suspicion that a woman who would resort to the “hot sauce” might design other sadistic cruelties to be visited upon her unfortunate son.
Yet, at the hearing on Monday, Beagley had the nerve to plead with the court to spare her jail time for the bad parenting because:
“My most important job in this life is being a mother,” Beagley told the Anchorage Daily News.
“I would ask that the court would allow me to be that. To be that mother that I would like to be, to not disrupt the lives of my children any more than has been already.”
Beagley faced up to a year in prison and a $10,000 fine.
Prosecutors asked for 30 days of jail time to be followed by 330 days suspended along with a $3,000 fine of which she would have to pay half.
Grrrrrrrr…