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PDFFrom The Root:
A Connecticut woman has pleaded guilty for fraudulently enrolling her son in the wrong school district, according to the Huffington Post. The case, which ignited a media firestorm last year, ended Wednesday in a plea by Tanya McDowell. While she didn’t necessarily admit her guilt, she did agree that the state has enough evidence to convict her.
In addition to the fradulent ednrollment, she was found guilty of selling narcotics and faces five years in prison. Her lawyer, Darrell Copeland, said that no one should be thrown in jail for “stealing a free education.” He also insists that she is not guilty.
McDowell was homeless when she was charged with using her babysitter’s address to enroll her son in kindergarten in Norwalk instead of Bridgeport, her last permanent address.
This is one of the saddest cases we have read about in a long time. If this woman hadn’t enrolled her child in a school, she would have been charged with a crime. She then goes ahead and uses an address where she previously lived and gets charged for trying to get her child a better education? It’s a terrible truth that this country is more likely to punish a poor mother and her child than the bankers who have done so much to ruin not just the American economy but economies around the world.
On the other hand, a white mother who gambled away son’s funds to fight cancer avoids jail:
The mother who gambled away $15,000 in benefit money raised to help her son fight cancer was sentenced to probation today in State Supreme Court. Sherry R. Holcomb, 46, of Cortland, pleaded guilty last September to a felony count of scheme to defraud. Holcomb opened a bank account and deposited the money raised at a benefit, and even funds sent with get-well cards, for Ryan O’Donnell, her 21-year-old son. Then she used ATM cards to withdraw the money to finance her gambling at casinos across the Northeast.
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Justice John L. Michalski sentenced Holcomb to five years on probation and 200 hours of community service, and ordered her to repay the money she had lost gambling.
Holcomb, who apologized for her behavior, faced up to four years in prison.
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