ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — Jurors on Wednesday watched video of a woman squirting hot sauce in the mouth of her adopted son and then making him stand in a cold shower in a case that caused a public uproar in Russia after it aired on the “Dr. Phil” show.
Jessica Beagley, of Anchorage, is charged with misdemeanor child abuse. Beagley‘s lawyer said she was punishing the 7-year-old boy from Russia because he misbehaved in school and then lied about it.
Beagley used unusual methods because more traditional forms of punishment had not worked with the boy, attorney William Ingaldson said.
Beagley went on the “Dr. Phil” show to try and get help for herself and the boy, Ingaldson told jurors. But, prosecutors say, what Beagley did went beyond what would be considered reasonable parental discipline and amounted to child abuse.
She submitted the nine-minute video, made on Oct. 21, 2010, for an episode titled “Mommy Confessions.” It shows the 36-year-old mother talking forcefully to the boy in a hallway in the family’s home.
"Why did you lie to me? Does it work to lie to me?” she asks the child.
Beagley asks the boy what happens when he lies. “I get hot sauce,” the crying boy replies.
The video shows Beagley leading the boy into a bathroom, where he sits on the counter next to the sink and she squirts hot sauce in his mouth. “Don‘t spit it,” she says.
"Are lies supposed to be out of your mouth?” she yells, her arms braced on either side of him. When he admits to lying, she allows him to spit out the hot sauce.
She then explains to the child that he is going to get in a cold shower for lying about misbehavior at school: wriggling in his seat and sword-fighting with pencils.
The video did not show the child in the shower, but the boy’s screams can be heard.
“Listen to your teacher,” she says. “You are to do what you are told.”
Viewers contacted Anchorage police after the “Dr. Phil” episode aired last November.
Beagley and her husband, an Anchorage police officer, are trying to give two orphans a chance at a better life, Ingaldson told jurors. The Beagleys, who have four biological children, adopted the twin boys after they had been in the orphanage for three years.
He said the twins were born to a mother with a drinking problem and a father who was in and out of jail. When Russia investigators caught up with the family, they were living in a shack. The boys slept on shelves in an armoire, he said.
The boys were placed in an orphanage where the mother visited three times before abandoning them, Ingaldson said.
The couple “thought this was their chance to make a difference in kids‘ lives,” Ingaldson said.
<한글 요약>
냉정한 母, 입양아에게 핫소스 물리고 냉수욕시켜
러시아에서 입양한 아들을 훈육하기 위해 강제로 핫 소스를 입에 물게 하고 차가운 물에 샤워하게 한 여성이 아동 학대 혐의로 법정에 섰다.
36세의 제시카 비글리 (Jessica Beagley)씨는 지난해 10월 ‘엄마의 고백’ 이라는 에피소드를 리얼리티 TV 쇼 닥터 필에 제출 했고 11월 공식 방영된 후 시청자들의 제보에 따라 아동 학대 혐의로 체포되었다.
변호인은 제시카가 아들이 학교에서 잘못 행동 한 것에 대해 거짓말을 해서 벌을 주는 과정이었으며 그녀 자신과 아들이 도움을 받기 위해 영상을 제출했다고 변론 했다.
그러나 검사 측은 벌을 주는 과정이 정당한 부모의 훈육을 넘어서 아동 학대에 가깝다고 지적했다.
비글리 부부는 3년간 고아원에서 자란 쌍둥이 남자 아이 둘을 입양했으며 아이들의 삶에 변화를 주고 싶었다고 한다.
