Crimesider
Crimesider
February 7, 2013 9:50 AM

Drug addicted Fla. mom only fed 1-year-old junk food, got high from his nebulizer, police allege

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Crimesider Staff
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Ashley Nicole Curtis

/ WPEC-TV
(CBS) LANTANA, Fla. - Police arrested Ashley Nicole Curtis, 23, for allegedly regularly leaving her 1-year-old boy alone for hours in unsafe situations and feeding him brownies, Oreos, cake and little else while she got high smoking oxycodone, CBS affiliate WPEC-TV reports.

Curtis, of Lantana, Fla., was arrested Feb. 2 on a child cruelty charge. She was released three days later on a $1,500 bond, according to the station.

Police were called to Curtis' home by a Department of Children and Families investigator. The investigator and three witnesses who spoke to police at the home all alleged Curtis was a chronic drug user. They told officials Curtis frequently left her toddler locked in a high chair or a portable crib for hours while she was passed out from smoking oxycodone.

One witness reportedly told authorities that Curtis only fed the child junk food, "when she bothered to feed him at all."

According to a probable cause affidavit, one witness told police the boy was sick for three weeks but Curtis refused to buy medication or seek treatment. She allegedly said the boy was faking the cough and other symptoms "for attention," WPEC-TV reports.

When she did seek medical treatment for the boy's cough, she allegedly used the Albuterol nebulizer for herself several times a day to get the stimulant effect, a witness told police.

The station reports the child was taken into protective custody.


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