http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6571648/
Son locked in car trunk while mom parties
Woman pleads guilty to child abuse
The Associated Press
Updated: 10:37 p.m. ET Nov. 23, 2004
SAN DIEGO - A mother who left her 7-year-old son locked in the trunk
of a car while she partied in a bar has pleaded guilty to child abuse
and false imprisonment.
Sarah Powell, 27, and her boyfriend, Jake Faria, 30, entered their
pleas Monday as part of a plea bargain.
The charges carry maximum prison terms of up to six years, but the
couple are likely to be sentenced to probation at a Jan. 5 hearing
with credit for time served, according to San Diego Superior Court
Judge Browder Willis.
Both were jailed for several weeks after their arrests.
Powell was arrested during her birthday celebration on Aug. 23 at a
bar in San Diego’s Ocean Beach neighborhood. A witness had alerted
police that the boy was in the trunk of Powell’s Volvo, which was
parked outside.
The boy was found in the trunk with a pillow and a sleeping bag.
Police said Powell told them she put the boy in the trunk for
safekeeping when she was unable to find a baby sitter.
Faria, who is not the boy’s father, was arrested a few days later.
Powell’s lawyer, Mary Ellen Attridge, said Powell exercised bad
judgment, but that she and Faria otherwise have taken good care of the
boy. “She has been a very good mother,” Attridge said.
The boy is living with a foster family, but Powell is attending
parenting and substance-abuse programs and is working to regain
custody, Attridge said.
© 2004 The Associated Press
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Contempt of Congress meter reading-offscale.
Hello, theocracy with a fundamentalist US Supreme
Court who will ensure church and state are joined
at the hip like clergy and altar boys.
America 1776-Jan 2001 RIP
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