'Hot Sauce Mom' Found Guilty for Spicy Punishment

[baby1]

TweetThe Alaska mother who used hot sauce to punish her son was convicted of abuse.


Anyone see this video? I saw this lady on Dr PHil. The video is a bit disturbing and I am glad she was found guilty.

[irish_2003]

Tweeti honestly don't think she did anything wrong......what's next? making it a crime to make your kid eat vegetables when they're bad?

[baby1]

TweetDid you see the video? I think she is a nutcase. Obviously the hot sauce thing was not working as she had to keep doing it. There are other ways to discipline that are more effective, imo.

[SFGiants]

TweetThe hot sauce isn't bad at all but why the cold shower that is mean!

[baby1]

TweetA woman put hot sauce in her adopted seven-year-old son's mouth not to punish the boy for lying but to come up with sensational footage to get on the Dr Phil self-help TV show, a court has heard.

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

Beagley, from Anchorage, Alaska, faces misdemeanour child abuse charges stemming from the footage.

The eight-minute video shows Beagley confronting her Russian-born 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 to bed.

"There is no reason in the world why someone has to hurt a child to get on a reality show," Franklin told the District Court jury in her closing argument.


Dr Phil.

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 18 months, 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. Producers 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 10-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 said.

The episode aired on November 17, 2010. A call to the show for comment was not immediately returned.

Beagley's lawyer, William Ingaldson, said Beagley and her husband, a police officer, had tried more traditional means of punishment, such as spankings, timeouts and television restrictions, but none of those worked with Kristoff.

Beagley made the video and went on the show because she was desperate to find help for her son.

While Kristoff's twin made an easier adjustment, Kristoff was more difficult, doing such things as urinating on the floor, Ingaldson said.

The boy had been recently diagnosed with reactive attachment disorder and was in therapy, Ingaldson said.

Ingaldson encouraged the jury to look closely at other footage submitted to the show where Beagley coaches the children on not getting into trouble and reminding them of what happens if they do.

"She is not trying to get these kids to misbehave. She is trying to do the opposite," he said.