Woman Sentenced for Piercing Girl's Goodies

(Baton Rouge, Louisiana) A 43-year-old woman, Tammy Jane Meredith, was sentenced to a year in jail for child abuse in the unwanted piercing of the pubic area of a 13-year-old girl. Meredith pleaded no contest to child abuse and operating a body piercing service without a license. The sentence was part of a deal in which Meredith agreed to testify against the girl's mother.

The girl's mother requested the piercing, a post and a connected hoop, after learning that her daughter had been sexually active with two adult men.

Donald Day, the attorney representing the mother, said it's debatable whether she committed child abuse or even did anything illegal. He said it's more of a parental rights case involving a mother who was at her wit's end.

"If you had a 13-year-old girl who was having sex repeatedly with 30-year-old men, and you've tried everything you know to do and you can't stop her, what would you do? Why wouldn't you put a ring down there that would physically stop her?" Day said.

Day said the ring made it difficult or impossible for the girl to have sex.

According to Assistant State Attorney Steve Maresca, the allegations regarding the girl having sex with adult men are being investigated. The incidents allegedly occurred in 2004.

The girl's mother pleaded innocent and is scheduled to go to trial in Collier County Circuit Court on February 19th. The mother lost custody of the girl who was assigned a guardian by the court.


[Update 08/23/07]

Piercing case update.