Child Endangerment Prozac & Xanax 29/03/2005 Florida Woman Allows Children to Use Alcohol & Drugs
 
 Summary:<br><br><!--StartFragment -->First paragraph reads: &quot; A woman accused of<strong> allowing children to use drugs and alcohol in her home avoided</strong> jail Monday when she tearfully told a court<strong> she&#39;d lost her good judgment in a haze of prescription anti- depressants.&quot;<br /><br /><br /></strong><a href="http://www.tcpalm.com/tcp/local_news/article/0,2545,TCP_16736_3657616,00.html">http://www.tcpalm.com/tcp/local_news/article/0,2545,TCP_16736_3657616,00.html</a> <br /><br />Accused party mom dodges jail time <br /><br />The judge orders Donna Rydberg, who allegedly provided drugs and vodka-based &quot;Jell-O shots&quot; to three minors, to house arrest and probation. <br /><br /><strong>By Melissa E. Holsman <br />staff writer<br />March 29, 2005</strong> <br /><br />STUART ? A woman accused of allowing children to use drugs and alcohol in her home avoided jail Monday when she tearfully told a court she&#39;d lost her good judgment in a haze of prescription anti- depressants. <br /><br />Prosecutors accused Donna Rydberg, 47, of providing drugs and vodka-based &quot;Jell-O shots&quot; to three minor girls ? including her 17-year-old daughter ? before she was arrested June 4 at her Palm City home. <br />&nbsp;<br />&quot;I am so humiliated and so mortified and so sorry for what I&#39;ve caused,&quot; a choked up Rydberg told Circuit Judge Dwight Geiger. &quot;I wouldn&#39;t do today what I did 10 months ago. I didn&#39;t seem to care. I lost all sense of reality and judgment.&quot; <br /><br />According to sheriff&#39;s reports, a &quot;cooperating citizen&quot; helped police record Rydberg as she provided him with two Xanax pills the day before she was arrested. <br /><br />After searching her home, detectives arrested Rydberg on charges including drug possession, sale or delivery of Xanax, and three counts of contributing to the delinquency of a minor. <br /><br />Three girls in the home had Blood-alcohol levels of 0.02 percent, a sheriff&#39;s report stated. All three admitted to drinking in front of Rydberg. <br /><br />On the counters were plastic cups containing the Jell-O shots, detectives noted. <br /><br />Rydberg&#39;s lawyer, Richard Kibbey, of Stuart, insisted it wasn&#39;t a case of a party-loving mom but the result of a &quot;medical-induced meltdown&quot; that caused a lapse in judgment. <br /><br />&quot;She was under a doctor&#39;s care; she was taking four different prescribed medications, including Xanax and Prozac,&quot; Kibbey said. &quot;And the combined effect of those medications caused a mental disorder.&quot; <br /><br />Rydberg said she&#39;d sought medical help for stress resulting from single-motherhood, long work hours and money problems. <br /><br />&quot;I went to this doctor for help, because I was definitely struggling, and all she did was make the problems that I had even worse,&quot; Rydberg told the court. &quot;I&#39;m a good person. I just fell into some bad circumstances.&quot; <br /><br />She pleaded no contest Monday to misdemeanor charges of possession of marijuana and contributing to the delinquency of a minor, and a felony charge of sale or delivery of Xanax. <br /><br />Prosecutors sought six months in jail, but Geiger ordered Rydberg to serve two years house arrest and two years of probation. <br /><br />He also withheld adjudication of guilt on the felony charge and ordered Rydberg to pay $1,500 in fines, take parenting classes and avoid contact with minors in her home without another adult present. <br /><br /><em>- <a href="mailto:melissa.holsman@scripps.com">melissa.holsman@scripps.com</a></em> <br /> 
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