"Hot sauce mom" video helped convict her: expert

The conviction of the "hot sauce mom" has tongues wagging about the lengths people will go to to be on TV and what is and isn't child abuse.

The controversy surrounding the "hot sauce mom," Jessica Beagley, got more heated when a jury found the Alaskan mother of six guilty of misdemeanor child abuse Monday for her unusual methods of punishing her seven-year-old son. Anchorage authorities became aware of the situation after a video of the woman's behavior aired on an episode of the "Dr. Phil" TV show last year.

In the disturbing video, Beagley, 36, is seen punishing the boy for lying by pouring hot sauce in his mouth and forcing him to take a cold shower. The seven-year-old, who was adopted from Russia, can be heard screaming in the video, which was shot by an older sister.

After Beagley appeared on the "Dr. Phil" show last November, the clip went viral, and viewers contacted authorities in Anchorage, who investigated and charged her with child abuse.

The prosecution contended Beagley made the tape to get on the "Dr. Phil" show. She had previously sent videos of her yelling at her children, but producers allegedly told her they needed to see her punishing her son.

"The act of videotaping yourself punishing your child in order to try to convince a show to let you on is the abuse," said Cynthia Franklin, a municipal prosecutor.

But Beagley's defense attorney says she is a loving mother who made the video in a desperate attempt to get help with her son. He says the child abuse ordinance is unclear about acceptable punishments.

"I think anytime you have a law where you're going to criminalize behavior, the law should reflect and give you strong guidance as to what is acceptable and not acceptable," said William Ingaldson, Beagley's attorney.

Beagley will be sentenced Monday and could face up to a year in jail, a $10,000 fine and up to 10 years of probation. According to Beagley's lawyer, local children's services have found no reasons to remove the children from her home.

After seeing the video, some say Beagley is lucky she only got convicted of a misdemeanor.

So, did she get off the hook? What did the jury exactly find here?

According to CBS News Legal Analyst Lisa Bloom, "The law required the jury to find her behavior was either cruelty or torture, and that's what the jury found -- convicted her of one misdemeanor count of child abuse. They're saying the hot sauce, the cold shower and probably, most importantly, the act of videotaping the punishment -- all of that taken together added up to cruelty, and therefore child abuse."

How big a role did the videotape play a role in this?

"I think that's what pushed this case over the line," Bloom said. "A lot of people likened the hot sauce to washing the child's mouth out with soap. But what pushed this over the line was the videotaping. This clip is online. It will follow the boy the rest of his life. She did this so she could be on television, so she could be a TV star. That made it especially cruel in the eyes of these jurors."

Will what Beagley did have any effect in the sentencing coming up on Monday?

"I think it will. She's looking at one year behind bars, a $10,000 fine. Although, in my experience in these kinds of cases, typically, a first (time) offender will not get any time, probably get ordered into parenting classes, anger management, maybe a nominal amount of time behind bars," Bloom said.

Is the "Dr. Phil" show liable for encouraging this sort of behavior?

"A lot of people have asked me that. I don't see that here. This took place at her home in Alaska. There was no producer of the show or representative of the show present," Bloom points out. "The show simply asked her to show her punishing her child, didn't give her guidance, encouragement or direction as to what to do, so I don't see any liability on the part of the show."

Isn't that odd that a producer would ask people to show proof of punishment to your child?

"This is the age that we live in now. The show would have to encourage her to commit a crime for them to have liability and I don't see that here," she said.

Will this washing your mouth out with soap analogy, now cause parents to think twice when disciplining their child?

"It should. I think our standards are evolving. There's no long-term physical damage, but what we're talking about is psychological cruelty," she adds. "This jury found child abuse the next case could be a washing a child's mouth out with soap. I think that parents should consider that seriously."