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Parent Peril: 4 Cautionary Tales

A mother in West Boca faces a child abuse charge after giving her 6-year-old son one of the Adderall pills that had been prescribed for her, but not him. Heather McAuliffe then emailed her son’s teacher, telling the teacher that she’d given the child the drug and to let her know if there were changes in the child’s behavior, according to the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.  Adderall is a controlled substance used to treat attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, A.D.H.D., and requires a prescription.  State law requires teachers to report any suspected child abuse.

A Holly Hill family was discovered living with a decomposing body.  When police were asked to conduct a well-being check on a disabled woman, they discovered Todd LaDuke, Nicole Scalise and their three children illegally living in the house with the woman’s decaying body, according to the Orlando Sentinel.  They had been living on the dead woman’s  Supplemental Security Income.   Scalise and LaDuke were arrested on multiple charges.

A St. Cloud mom was arrested by the Osceola County Sheriff’s Office Thursday for acting as madam to her three teen-age daughters, finding “johns” for the girls, according to the Orlando Sentinel.  The daughters, all drug users, were taken into state custody under the Marchman Act, which allows drug abusers to be placed in treatment involuntarily.

Finally, an Ocala mother was arrested Saturday after hitting her daughter with a baseball bat.  Jamaica L. Ross  admitted to the Marion County Sheriff’s deputy that she and her 16-year-old daughter had argued and that she (Ross) had “whooped her a--,” the OcalaStar-Banner reports (paywall alert).  Ross was arrested.  The daughter and her two sisters have no other family in the area and were placed in the custody of the Department of Children and Families.

Originally founded in December 2006 as an independent grassroots publication dedicated to coverage of health issues in Florida, Health News Florida was acquired by WUSF Public Media in September 2012.