Anchorage, Alaska: A woman put spicy sauce in her adopted seven-year-old son's mouth not to punish the Russian boy for lying but to come up with sensational footage to get on the Dr Phil self-help TV show, a prosecutor argued on Monday.
Jessica Beagley, 36, recorded the punishment on October 21, 2010, for a show segment titled Mommy Confessions, said prosecutor Cynthia Franklin. The woman faces misdemeanor child abuse charges over the footage.
The eight-minute video shows Beagley confronting her son Kristoff about misbehaving in school and lying, and then pouring hot sauce into the crying child's mouth and not allowing him to spit it out for more than a minute.
Beagley's lawyer said if she could take back the video, she would.
