Alaska's Hot Sauce Mom Found Guilty of Child Abuse

Alaska's Hot Sauce Mom Found Guilty of Child Abuse





By JESSICA HOPPER (@jesshop23)
Aug. 23, 2011

An Alaska mother of six has been found guilty of child abuse for forcing her son to drink hot sauce and take cold showers on a taped segment of the "Dr. Phil" show.

Jessica Beagley, 36, was found guilty of one count of misdemeanor child abuse by a jury of three men and three women. She will be sentenced on Monday and could face one year in prison.

A police investigation began after Beagley appeared with "Dr. Phil" McGraw in November of last year, according to court documents. The segment of the show was called "Mommy Confessions."

Beagley told Dr. Phil about her difficulty disciplining her 7-year-old son, Kristoff. Video shot by her 10-year-old daughter showed Beagley at home in Alaska disciplining the boy.

Beagley and her police officer husband adopted twin boys from Russia when they were 5 years old, the Anchorage Daily News reported. The boy seen drinking the hot sauce is one of the adopted children.

"We've tried a lot of different things to punish the kids," she said on the show.

The mom admits to spanking her child and forcing him to do jumping jacks until he's exhausted. During the show, the boy is being punished for getting "three cards pulled," three infractions at school.

On camera, Beagley is seen pouring hot sauce down the boy's throat as punishment for lying. Beagley, leaning over the boy as he sits on the bathroom counter, says, "don't spit it."

The boy can be heard screaming when Beagley forces him to take a cold shower.

"When [he] gets a cold shower, I am at the end of my rope," Beagley said on the show. "Nothing's gotten the results that I want."

She told Dr. Phil her son is "the biggest stress in my life."

Prosecutors argued that Beagley performed the abuse to get a spot on the show. Her defense team argued that she came on the show in a desperate move to find ways to help her son.

RedBedroom wrote:This case is really something. I can't believe that this mother did such a messed up thing to her child, and was so candid about it. However, she did seek help from Dr. Phil and so I hope that she does have it in her somewhere to seek tools to parent better once this has passed.

Mother-of-six who shocked U.S. with film of her forcing son to drink hot sauce 'only did it to get on Dr Phil'

By Daily Mail Reporter

Last updated at 9:22 AM on 23rd August 2011


The mother-of-six who put hot sauce in her adopted seven-year-old son's mouth claims she did it not to punish him but to come up with sensational footage to get on the Dr Phil show.

Jessica Beagley, 36, recorded the punishment on October 21, 2010, for a show segment titled 'Mommy Confessions', said prosecutor Cynthia Franklin.

The Anchorage woman faces misdemeanour child abuse charges stemming from the footage.

The eight-minute video shows Beagley confronting her son Kristoff about misbehaving in school and lying, and then pouring hot sauce into the crying child's mouth and not allowing him to spit it out for more than a minute.

The footage also shows Beagley forcing the screaming boy into a cold shower before sending him off the bed.

Under a city ordinance, that is child abuse, Ms Franklin told the District Court jury in her closing argument.

'There is no reason in the world why someone has to hurt a child to get on a reality show,' she said.

When the episode aired, it sparked public outrage in Russia, with some demanding that Kristoff and his twin brother, who were both adopted by Beagley and her husband, be returned to their native country.

Franklin told the jury that it wasn't Beagley's first attempt to get on the Dr Phil show.

She had seen a segment in April 2009 titled 'Angry Moms' and contacted the show but heard nothing for a year and a half, Ms Franklin said.

The show eventually called to find out if Beagley was still angry, she said.

Beagley then submitted audition videos, but was told they needed to see more than just yelling at the children: They needed to see her actually punishing her son, the prosecutor said.

That's when Beagley got the flip-cam ready, made sure there was enough hot sauce on the shelf in the bathroom and recruited her ten-year-old daughter to shoot the video, Franklin said.

Days later, she was on her way to Los Angeles to be on the show, Franklin added.

'It is all about the show,' she said.

The episode aired on November 17, 2010.



http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2029054/Jessica-Beagley-forced-son-drink-hot-sauce-just-Dr-Phil.html