While some teenage boys might nominate her as “mother of the year,” Judy H. Viger, 33, has been arrested on five counts of endangering the welfare of a child after she allegedly hired strippers to perform at her 16-year-old son’s birthday party.
Prosecutors insist that the dancers (who did not strip nude) did perform intimate dances and that five of the kids were younger than 17. Police also reported that several kids at the party got lap dances. However, there were over 80 kids and adults at the party watching the performance of women from “Tops to Bottoms.”
I find the party wildly inappropriate and I would be exceptionally ticked off if I was not told about the theme (and I would not allow my kid to attend the party). The picture below does show how inappropriate the party was. I cannot imagine any parent watching this type of display, let alone arrange it. However, the question is whether it is a form of endangerment, particularly if the parents of the boys were present. What is interesting is that the parents of the other boys could also be charged under this standard:
§ 260.10 Endangering the welfare of a child.
A person is guilty of endangering the welfare of a child when:
1. He or she knowingly acts in a manner likely to be injurious to the
physical, mental or moral welfare of a child less than seventeen years
old or directs or authorizes such child to engage in an occupation
involving a substantial risk of danger to his or her life or health; or
2. Being a parent, guardian or other person legally charged with the
care or custody of a child less than eighteen years old, he or she fails
or refuses to exercise reasonable diligence in the control of such child
to prevent him or her from becoming an “abused child,” a “neglected
child,” a “juvenile delinquent” or a “person in need of supervision,” as
those terms are defined in articles ten, three and seven of the family
court act.
3. A person is not guilty of the provisions of this section when he or
she engages in the conduct described in subdivision one of section
260.00 of this article: (a) with the intent to wholly abandon the child
by relinquishing responsibility for and right to the care and custody of
such child; (b) with the intent that the child be safe from physical
injury and cared for in an appropriate manner; (c) the child is left
with an appropriate person, or in a suitable location and the person who
leaves the child promptly notifies an appropriate person of the child’s
location; and (d) the child is not more than thirty days old.
Endangering the welfare of a child is a class A misdemeanor.
The use of “moral welfare” in the language is highly problematic from a constitutional standpoint. Since there was not physical harm, the only enforceable basis would be mental harm. Would watching or even participating in a lap dance be mentally harmful for a 16 year old boy today? Should this be charged as a crime?
Source: New York Daily
It’s a right of passage in some areas of the country…. Just ask former governor candidate Clayton Williams…..
The prosecutor is gay and resents the competition for the hearts and minds of the soon to be voters (age 18). I worked in a cathouse at age 16 when I was a human in a prior life in a town called East Saint Louis. I cleaned up rooms after business was transacted. The first day I went to collect wages and the three girls showed me how I could take it out in trade. I went with my half blind guy for whom I am now guide dog, to a place in Amsterdam and guided him through the routine, although he needed no guidance. America has to quit the facade of puritanism. Pork em if ya gottem.
The main purpose of the 18 thing is to entrap more people than if they didn’t have it; it’s a cousin to having the highest per capita prison population in the world, but also to provide a blackmail point for high up polititians who decide to serve the people more than the Illuminati.
Dumb thing to do, but certainly not criminal.
Seems a lot like “public mischief” and “disorderly conduct” statutes: a way to arrest people you find offensive to your morals.
The prosecutors get a lot of free publicity by bringing charges.
Well, to give you an idea of the state of system, I just got charged with child neglect, for only talking to my 9 year old daughter about the Constitution and our court case.
Just for talking.
🙂 🙂 🙂
Bron,
Do you mean that your wife can still do a lapdance?
16 is much too late. Better thirteen for me and suspect even earlier for today’s kids. Ho hum, they would say. Porno with my buddies/girlfriends was more exciting. An old parent, and all are old, viewing sex with the younger generation is just an embarrassment to the kids.
These parents were all of them nuts, cuckoo, wacko, …………
BFN
With a group of 17-year-old male “victims” you’d have a tough time proving any harm at all. Poor taste; no crime.
Lrobby99:
how do you figure that?
I had a couple of lap dances when I was in my early 20’s [very early] and I have been married for a very long time.
OTOTOTOTOT
Why I came here was to find a live thread to lay an egg in. Mixing metaphors.
http://www.newsobserver.com/2013/02/20/2695204/limit-on-raleigh-races-was-overdue.html#emlnl=Editorials
“On Tuesday, the Raleigh City Council approved a cap on the number of road races and parades that cause road closings that are a bother to downtown residents along the routes, motorists passing through and businesses that become inaccessible for a few hours…………….
What idiots permit road races on the main east-west surface artery through town?
What idiots set caps much higher than the number recorded in the last 5 years?
Feel at home? In my Stockholm you would not. We have a marathon, and we have a Gay Pride parade. That all on the streets here.
I depart with my halo cockily placed over one eyebrow.
call me old fashioned but that mother is out of her mind. Where was the father?
What were the other parents thinking?
Although thank god she didnt take them out for a day of rifles, pistols and shotguns, she would have been thrown in jail and the key would have been thrown away.
When I was 16, I think I would have preferred a day shooting, hunting or fishing with my father than lap dances with my mother. WTF was she thinking?
And rafflaw is right and so is feemeister and Idealist007.
I would guess the case won’t last. Much like this kids future relationships with women.
Maybe they were huffing and puffing. Getting primed for home sex. Or get it where you can.
A good catch-all statute, which will due to prosecute those you want to prosecute (persecute?) I think that we will be seeing more of this. Is it ALEC or just human perversity, with the assistance of politically inclined DAs? How to pump up a DA’s record.
I guess ths is how a mother who gave birth at the age of 17 acts when her son turns 16. Sad situation, but not illegal. Especially if other parents allowed it. What were they thinking?
Hrrrumphh!
Please note that she was very young when she had her son (first child?).
Therefore she is a product of improper upbringing herself. Hrumph,
That she is vicariously experiencing what her 16 year old dream was or is re-living it.
Leaving all harrumphs aside, let us note that writing statutes is one thing. Enforcing them is another. Some parent with good standing with the justice system made a formal complaint or gave a tip (enough in itself) to the police.
She will do for prosecution for the moral purposes, and the real cases of neglect will be neglected by the system.
Nanny state? Rather insanity state.
Isn’t that like legislating morality? Nanny government at its best? Tacky for sure, but endangerment? Is there actually a law on the books saying it is illegal for a mother to hire strippers for her son’s party? If there’s no specific law against it (and how she would be supposed to know about the law anyway I have no clue), then I hardly see how it’s illegal. And if it’s not illegal she should not have been arrested. They are making stuff up to arrest people for now.
Gee, I wish my mom had done that 52 years ago……….