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
The source article indicates that the charges may have been more likely due to the attendance of 13 and 14 year olds. In my jurisdiction both the arranging parent and the dancers could have been charged with felonies carrying mandatory prison sentences and registration.
Religious people arrest. Why do people want to be like people that are not like Christ is? Arresting makes the person arresting whoever believe a lie.
nick,
first of all, it was not a snide remark. It was an observation due to how old a child this 33yr old mother had. It doesn’t matter who or what race of a young women is having babies at an early age. It is tough enough raising a child when you are an adult. It is even harder when you are a child having a child. Not impossible, just tougher. I am also not suggesting that she made a mistake by having a child at a young age. It is just a very tough job for any 17 year old to handle. It seems that the other parents who witnessed this and allowed it have some things to learn as well.
What if your daughter brought home a Christian conservative and said, “Dad, meet Chad..we’re getting married and I’m a member of his church and the Republican party.”
rafflaw, Would you have made the snide remark about the age of the mother @ her son’s birth if she was a person of color? I think not.
Stop the arresting. Jesus in the soul gives good things not warrants or fines. Not giving jail time. That 16 year old saw what God made. Devils see something wrong with that.
Stop the arresting. Jresus in the sou;l gives good things not warrens or fines. Not giving jail time. That 16 year old saw what God made. Devils see something wrong with that.
Yes, it is rather pathetic Bron to see mommy taking their sons to a stripper performance. My wife and I were having dinner with some relatives at a restaurant and saw several teenagers there dressed in their high school prom formals. Every one of them had their moms there. It was pathetic. This is the same generation that never knew how to walk from school on their own or ride the bus because mommy and daddy were there to pick them up in their SUVs
This is more an extension of mollycoddling than endangering child welfare. Some states have statutes relating to minors being admitted to a live adult performance (strip club) which would not apply here since it was a private home, so the police probably chose the catch all law to hoover up the suspects.
I wouldn’t want a son to associate with these kinds of women anyway though. But this is not a criminal matter in my book. The lap dance is stretching it though.
Mr. Spindell,
Maybe I am confused, but I have often read comments by you in which you assert that you were the beneficiary of an upbringing in which you had free access to (what many would consider to be) “adult” materials. Perhaps you can explain why you see this as “dumb,” explain more fully what was allowed in your youth, and where you draw the “line” (e.g., is Playboy ok, but live nudes are not?).
“Maybe I am confused, but I have often read comments by you in which you assert that you were the beneficiary of an upbringing in which you had free access to (what many would consider to be) “adult” materials. Perhaps you can explain why you see this as “dumb,” explain more fully what was allowed in your youth, and where you draw the “line” (e.g., is Playboy ok, but live nudes are not?).”
Mahtso,
Notice I said it was dumb, not bad. Yes I was brought up in what at the time was an extremely sexually liberated home. My parents,my brother and I were able to freely discuss issues that in the 50’s and early 60’s would have shocked the majority of this country. Part of being brought up as I was in the belief that sex was a positive human characteristic and not something shameful and dirty, gave me a different perspect on sex whe I reached puberty.
Entailed with my “education” by the way, was that women should be seen as full partners in sex and not mere receptacles for a man’s passions. There were consequences to my behavior because of this. I always used birth control. Never “forced” myself on anyone. Another of those consequences is that I have never in my life ever seen a stripper, went to a “Mens Club”, or used a prostitute. I don’t think those who consume such are bad at all, rather it personally seems immature and infantile to me. It should all be legal though as long as there is absolutely no coersion of the “workers” ivolved. My relationships with women have been positive ones sexually, because I understood that sex was a sharing and not just a excuse for my orgasmic need.
I find the idea of a lap dance silly and think this mother was dumb for using it, as a way to introduce her son to sexuality. As the father of Daughters, I never once gave a thought to whether they were virgins. My wife and I raised them to be independent women, knowledgeable in the issues of sexuality and we trusted their emotional balance enough to let them make their own decisions. The interesting thing was that in school, where most of my daughter’s friends were kept ignorant about sex, many of the girls were what I would call “boy crazy”. My daughter’s, who are now grown, never went through that phase and both have proved quite capable of maintaining stable relationships. My home was somewhat less open in the sense of the fact that my daughters never saw me unclad, or even in underwear and except in infancy the reverse was true. However, my home was similar to that of my parents in that no topic was closed to discussion and no media was barred to them.
Bron,
I must say you’ve outdone yourself on the structure of above argument. Which is to summarize:
Bad Parents
Uptight Americans
Getting lucky is a value our Founders believed in.
We’re not so much Puritanical as deeply satisfied.
Neener.
Neener, neener. (Possibly more neeners.)
I know there are some structural problems here, but I’m going to accept it based on the audacity of aspiration and mendacity of intent in the conclusion alone. Bad parents, but we’re ‘Merkin and we’ve had the Horn since the days of the Declaration. Such homespun values are rarely seen in this day and age. Bravo. Substance trumps form. Well played.
Signed,
B. Franklin
How can they ignore the strippers themselves — to then focus on only one Mom out of a crowd of 80?
Because she called them or paid them? No body else chipped in?
The FUGS wrote about this retro phenomenon:
They also sang about it:
What Nal said
16 year old boys and girls are ready for sex; 16 is the age of consent in 30 states (it is 17 in New York, where this took place).
I think if you can consent to sex, you can consent to seeing the opposite sex naked or dancing. In this case, 16 is not old enough in New York, but no nakedness or sex actually took place, and since I do not believe in magical one-day transformations of mentality or understanding, I think a year before you are allowed to consent to actual physical sex is close enough to permit watching suggestive dancing when nobody even got naked. In other entertainment this is “parental guidance” territory for viewing, including language, nudity, and (simulated) sex in movies.
I think as a social libertarian it makes no difference if I would be comfortable with this or not, it is wildly illogical to say that in one state a 16 year old could consent to a full-on group-sex orgy but in another state the same 16 year old is ‘harmed’ by a girl in a bikini dancing suggestively.
humpkindog:
I disagree we are hypocrites. If I was 16 I would not want to go to a strip club with my mother or father for that matter.
jeezis h christy cant young people do anything for themselves now days? Now their parents have to help them get laid too? It is the end of America when a young man has to rely on his parents to help him get laid. I weep for my country.
We dont have a nanny state, we have a mommy state.
The Greatest Generation are, at least the ones who have passed on, turning over in their graves and wondering why they bothered to save us from Hitler, Tojo and the Soviet Union.
Americans love sex and have been greatly in favor of it since 1776. Those who do, do and those who dont talk about it. Americans are, with the apparent exception of the newer generation, doers not talkers. It has nothing to do with hypocrisy at all. It is like sports, those who can play are making money, those who cannot are sitting around talking about the statistics of those who can. Same with sex and why many Americans dont want to talk about it.
Show me a man or woman who wants to talk about sex or go to strip clubs and I will show you a person who doesnt get much.
Do you think pro-athletes sit around all the time talking sports? They leave that to the sports writers and talkers.
That is why Americans dont talk about sex much because we are having it.
I echo rafflaw. The fact that the woman had a kid at 17 speaks volumes. She clearly hasn’t learnt anything from her own mistakes, and now she’s made another one.
“HumpinkinDog1, February 21, 2013 at 9:41 am ”
What he said.
(
A waste of time. We have real problems with which to contend.
“If I was defending the defendant (victim) here I would depose all of the people who were there.” -H…Dog
However, there were over 80 kids and adults at the party watching the performance of women from “Tops to Bottoms.” -Jonathan Turley
Oh who cares? Inappropriate? Not if you’re the young man. Only America’s sex negativity drives the outrage behind stories like this. Sixteen year olds have access to far more graphic material online, though we play pretend like they don’t because then we don’t have to talk about it.
Call me when the drugs and guns come out. This? *yawn.
If I was defending the defendant (victim) here I would depose all of the people who were there. So, sonny boy, age 18, did you dance with any of the girls? See anything you had not seen before? Lose your virginity? Have a loss of faith in say the father, the son and the holy ghost? When I do the depos of the dancer I would want it on video and ask her to come in costume. I would ask for a demonstration. If it is not raw sex, meaning that which she performed for the kiddo, then I would move to dismiss the case for failure to state a cause of action. I would insist on showing the video in court during the motion hearing and invite all the kids in town to bear witness to their legal system in earnest.
At trial I would extensively voir dire the jurors on the questions of their prejudice. When did you first see a boob? Ahay, shortly after birth. Well, when did you first have sex? Ah, age fifteen. Juror number one is fully acceptable to the defense. Juror number two. You have a teenager according to the crib sheet here. Do you allow him to play on the computer when you are not present to observe the computer screen? Yes?. Ah, good. Juror number two is acceptable to the defense. Juror number seven, it says here that you work for a firm that is called Lingerie Plus. What do they make and sell? Scanty underwear for women? The product shown on television on the model? Ah, yes.
And so it goes America. You hypocrites.
I saw a comment that stuck out on HuffPo regarding the same story. The gist of it: If this were a father who had hired a bunch of male strippers to perform for his daughter’s party that had a number of underage girls present, would it be any different than the above situation and would it be OK?