Another Mom of the year candidate

Do you think if you are committing a felony you might not want to record yourself doing it with your cellphone? There doesn't seem to be a lot of extra IQ points hanging around Waukeesha or Menomonee Falls.

3 charged with letting 2-year-old smoke pot

Cell phone video among evidence in Falls case

By DAVID DOEGE

Posted: Oct. 10, 2007

Waukesha - A Menomonee Falls mother and two of her friends were charged Wednesday with sharing a marijuana cigarette with the woman's 2-year-old son, an episode they recorded on cell phone video clips, according to a criminal complaint.

The three agreed to keep the incident a secret and not show the video clips to anyone, according to the criminal complaint. But police received a tip and got a court order to seize the phone, which still held images of the boy's marijuana sampling experience when they viewed it, the complaint says.

One clip lasting two minutes and 15 seconds shows the boy wearing a motorcycle helmet and staggering around a bedroom "in what appears to be a confused and altered state," the complaint says.

"Hey, buddy," one of the mother's friends, Sean M. Held, says to the boy, according to the complaint. "Are you stoned?"

Laughter and other voices, including that of the mother, are then heard on the clip, according to the complaint.

Subsequent tests of a blood sample obtained from the boy did not indicate the presence of marijuana byproducts in the boy's system, making it difficult to prove a drug delivery charge against the three, according to Waukesha County District Attorney Brad Schimel.

"It was inconclusive," Schimel said. "So what we did was reach a reasonable compromise that will hold them accountable for their behavior."

The 20-year-old mother, whom the Journal Sentinel is not naming to protect the identity of her son, was charged with child neglect. She, Held, 19, and the other defendant, Dane Thomas Ashley, 20, all of Menomonee Falls, were also charged with contributing to the delinquency of a child and possession of marijuana.

The mother, who is quoted in the complaint as telling police she "would do anything to keep her son," still has custody of the boy and is being monitored by personnel from the county Department of Human Services, Schimel said.

"There will be ongoing supervision of her relationship with her son," Schimel said. "She is living with her mother, who had no knowledge of any of this nonsense and is a very responsible parent.

"She (the boy's mother) is being very cooperative and seems to have the right attitude about this."

The complaint says the incident occurred on the afternoon of Aug. 13, a date and time that was established by the three cell phone video clips viewed by police. It happened at Ashley's house, where the three gathered.

"The whole reason I went there was to smoke a blunt," the mother said of a marijuana cigarette fashioned from a hollowed-out cigar, according to the complaint.

After police obtained the cell phone from Held and viewed it, according to the complaint, they confronted the three and all admitted involvement in the incident.

"At one point, (the mother) offered (her son) the blunt, and Held saw the boy hold the blunt and put it up to his mouth," the complaint says Held told police. Held said that he was "shocked that (the boy) seemed to know how to hold the blunt."

The mother told police that Held came up with the idea to share the marijuana with her son and that he was the first to offer it to the boy after she agreed, the complaint says.

She also told police that Held first suggested making a video of the boy smoking the marijuana and that she initially balked at the idea out of concern that it would lead to trouble with the law, the complaint says.

"Held insisted that no one would see it and that what they were doing was funny," the complaint says.