Mother refuses to consider posting bail for daughter she calls `brat'

Associated Press News ^ | 2003-05-02 | Associated Press News Staff

[friendly]

The mother of a Laguna Hills woman accused of making a high-seas terrorist threat says she wouldn't have posted bail for her daughter even if a judge had granted it. Debra Ferguson tells the Los Angeles Times she could not risk her family's financial health by posting bail for her daughter, whom she calls a ``brat.''

Twenty-year-old Kelley Ferguson is accused of planting threatening notes aboard the Legend of the Seas in an effort to get the cruise ship to return to California so she could be reunited with her boyfriend. She was ordered held without bail after a prosecutor argued she is a flight risk.

Ferguson is charged with two counts of threatening acts of terrorism, and could face as much as ten years in prison on each charge.

Debra Ferguson says her daughter ``is going to have to stay in jail and learn her lesson.''

[Grampa Dave]

When our youngest son, who is now mid thirty something was a teenager, he ran with a pack of liberals and left wingers.

There was some protest scheduled to happen in San Francisco. His friends, sons and daughters of very well off lefties were going to SF to protest and get arrested. He announced that he planned to join them, the night before. That if we got a call from the police, we should drive to San Francisco to bail him out.

Without a pause, I said that I would not be posting bond to bail his butt out. His mother who normally was tender with him, the youngest child. Said that if he did that, she would sell everything he owned and buy new furniture for the family room as he would not be moving back in. After he served his jail sentence.

His oldest brother said, "Great, then my best friend can move into your old bedroom. He would pay room and board to live here!"

Reality hit our youngest one very hard that night. Now he jokes and laughs about it. One of his friend's parents grew up that night and refused to bail out their son/his friend when he was arrested the next. He spent about 5 days in jail. Most of his other friends who were arrested are still trapped in some reality break with their parents.

[Cathryn Crawford]

My parents taught me tough love. They have never bailed me out unless I deserved it. I was once falsely accused of a pretty serious charge when I was in HS and they were very supportive then. That's because I had earned their trust. I was 15 at the time, and a girl accused me of, basically, assaulting her. It was ridiculous, she didn't like me and was willing to do anything to get me out of the private school we both attended. It wound up that she left, because I had the support of my parents and the school principal. Thank God for that. I would have wound up on probation or worse if it weren't for that. So, in return, I know that my parents will be there if I need them, but if I screw up, it's my fault, and I have to face the consequences.

[Grampa Dave]

As a parent you have to back your children when they are correct and stand back and let them get whacked by society or the system when they are wrong.

[Cathryn Crawford]

Amen to that. It was nice to know my parents were on their way immediately (from two hours away) when I was sitting in the administative office with the police on the way and the other girl's parents looking at me...I knew when my mother and dad walked in the door that everything would be okay. And...I was right.

[Grampa Dave]

You have never forgotten that moment, and you will not!

[Cathryn Crawford]

No, I won't. I knew they loved me at that point.

[Grampa Dave]

A great feeling for everyone, the child and the parents. I been there and done that on both ends.

[Cathryn Crawford]

Yep...wasn't a good feeling at the time, but now it feels pretty good. Of course, the relief I felt when I saw my father walk through the door was astounding.

[Texas Eagle]

OMG. Are we sure her "boyfriend" didn't stuff her inside her mom's luggage?

[RansomOttawa]

She's in high school? She's 20 years old...

's nothing. After an accident a few years ago, I shared a hospital room with a guy who was 26 years old and still in grade 11.

Not surprisingly, when he found out I was a university English student, he tried to talk me into doing his homework for him. Also, he called his mother to ask for advice on dumping his current girlfriend, so he could hit on the 16-year-old sister of a little girl in a room down the corridor.

Lowlives are ubiquitous.

[Redcloak]

God bless Debra Ferguson!

[SerpentDove]

"The last time I saw a face like that, it had a hook in it."

/Rodney Dangerfield

[CaptainK]

"She also looks like many Caucasian female prison inmates I have seen over the years."

You're bad, LOL.

[Marysecretary]

Good for mom.

[Marysecretary]

She might be twenty but acts like she's a moonstruck child of 12. I hope this helps her grow up a bit.

[Marysecretary]

She's not very pretty. Probably figured this guy was her last chance. Poor kid.

[Marysecretary]

I agree. She looks more strawberry blond than a true red head.

[Marysecretary]

My husband's old one looked like he was Guido from the mob. It was hilarious.

[VRWC_minion]

The parents should have done more tough love. These vacations are called FFO's. Forced Family Outings. They never work with an out of control kid. The parents have this fantasy that it will. This has to be the worst FFO I ever heard of.