Crime Time

Drunken breast-feeding: Woman sentenced to get treatment

A judge in North Dakota has ordered a woman arrested for drunken breast-feeding of her 6-week-old baby to get treatment.

It could help her avoid jail time after she pleaded guilty to child neglect in June, officials said.

Stacey Averina was observed breast-feeding while intoxicated by police officers who were responding to to a domestic disturbance call.

-- Lance Murray

Man charged after rats chew off baby's toes

Under the category of gross, authorities in Ohio have charged an 18-year-old man with child endangerment after rats chewed off two toes of his girlfriend's 6-week-old baby.

Officials said that Todd Trent was at the home at the which the child was found. Charges against other are likely, officials said.

Mom pleads guilty in drunken breast-feeding case

Drunken breast-feeding has led a Grand Forks, N.D., to plead guilty to child neglect charges.

The mother was "extremely intoxicated" while she breast-fed her 6-week-old child said police who had responded to an unrelated call on Feb. 13 to a residence. They observed the woman slurring her speech while breastfeeding, according to prosecutors.

She'll be sentenced in August on the felony charge.

-- Lance Murray

Mom sentenced to prison for putting fetus in refrigerator

Gloria Ramirez, 28, a Lubbock mother of nine, was arrested in 2007 after police found a dead fetus stored in the refrigerator.

On Friday, a jury sentenced Ramirez to 10 years in prison on that charge and another 12 years for child endangerment.

Ramirez, who is pregnant, will serve the sentences concurrently.

In 2007, Lubbock police went to Ramirez's home after her common-law husband called a funeral home about a casket for a stillborn infant. Police said the fetus was found inside a baby wipe box in the refrigerator.

-- Lance Murray

Felony charge: Breast-feeding while drunk

Police in North Dakota have arrested a woman on a felony child neglect charge after officers said they observed her breast-feeding her baby while drunk.

The officers had gone to her home on a domestic disturbance call.

A prosecutor said the woman, Stacey Anvarinia, "wasn't in a position to care for the child properly."

The 27-year-old woman is free on bond and her attorney said no blood test was taken and that he thinks the charge will be difficult to prove.

What do you think?

-- Lance Murray

Mom arrested for kicking daughters out of car, driving away

When the kids are acting up in the car, the answer is not to throw them out and drive away.

A mother in New York has learned that after she was arrested for throwing her 10- and 12-year-old daughters out of the car and driving off because the girls were fighting. One daughter caught up and got back in. The other didn't.

The mother has been charged with endangering the welfare of a child, police said.

-- Lance Murray

Man pleads to selling 14-year-old daughter for cash, beer, meat

A deal's a deal, they say.

But that "deal," could send a California man to jail after he pleaded no contest to a charge that he sold his 14-year-old daughter into marriage in exchange for $16,000, beer and meat. The plea was to child endangerment.

Marcelino de Jesus Martinez, 36, will be sentenced May 7 and faces up to a year in jail and deportation.

Authorities said that Martinez and Margarito de Jesus Galindo had negotiated the marriage in exchange for the cash, the beer and the meat.

But, Martinez called in the cops to get his daughter back when he said payment wasn't made by Galindo.

-- Lance Murray

Fort Worth man charged for tying sons to poles as punishment

A Fort Worth man was arrested Saturday on two counts of child endangerment after his two sons were found tied to poles in chilly weather outside the motel he owns in east Fort Worth, police reported.

Jail records show that Natvarlal Patel, 42, was released Sunday on bond.

Officers on Saturday went to the hotel in the 1300 block of East Rosedale after they received a report of two boys, ages 10 and 8, tied to the poles outside, according to a police report.

One boy was wearing a sweatshirt, wind pants and flip flops; the other had on a short-sleeved T-shirt , wind pants and flip flops. The officers reported that it was 39 degrees outside, with 25 mph winds.

Attempts to reach Patel for comment on Wednesday were unsuccessful, but earlier this week he told the Dallas Morning News that he was disciplining his sons because they got some bad grades at school.

In an article written by reporter Debra Dennis, Patel said the boys weren't endangered and that they were loosely restrained behind their backs for only about five minutes.

Click here to read the full article.

-- Bill Miller

Sweating, crying baby found unattended in hot car

An alert shopper in Dallas on Sunday helped avert what might have been a tragedy, Channe\l 5 reports.

Police were called to the parking lot in the 1500 block of Cockrell Hill, after a shopper heard a child crying in a car. Inside the car he found a 7-month-old girl who had been left there unattended by her parents, police said. It was pretty warm on Sunday and the child was strapped in her car seat and sweating.

After the shopper tried to find the parents, he notified police. The baby's mother, Dulce Alvarez, 23, and Jesus Sarinana, 32, were arrested and charged with child endangerment.

The child was checked out by Dallas-Fire Rescue personnel and placed in the custody of Child Protective Services.

-- Lance Murray

18-foot pet python attacks 3-year-old boy; parents charged

The parents of a 3-year-old boy face felony child neglect, abuse, and endangerment charges after Las Vegas, Nev., police say the child was attacked by a pet python.

The 18-foot-long constrictor wrapped itself around the boy on Jan 20, at the family's home and began to squeeze the child, police say.

The child's mother reportedly stabbed the snake more than a dozen times with a kitchen knife in order to rescue the child. The snake was later euthanized.

-- Lance Murray