Mother gets prison for living with kids under playground equipment on beach

Tonya Alanez
Sun Sentinel

CANDACE WEST / MIAMI HERALD

Desperation drove a mother to live with her two daughters in an ant-infested dugout under a Fort Lauderdale beach playground, the tearful woman told a Broward judge.

Facing a maximum penalty of 17 years in prison, Tammy Kongkham placed her fate Friday in Broward Circuit Judge Ilona Holmes’ hands as she pleaded no contest to two felony counts of child neglect, one felony count of desertion and two misdemeanor counts of contributing to the delinquency of a minor.

“I’m a desperate mother. I love my children so very much, and I miss my children so very much,” said Kongkham, 37, fighting back sobs as she read from a handwritten letter, a Vietnamese- language interpreter by her side. “Your honor, I am asking you to have mercy on my poor, poor soul.”

Holmes sentenced Kongkham to four years in prison. After receiving credit for 804 days served, Kongkham will spend about two years in prison.

Authorities say Kongkham fled from Philadelphia to Broward County with her daughters in October 2008, two weeks after Pennsylvania child-welfare officials placed the girls in foster care.

Kongkham and the girls, then 8 and 10, stayed at a Broward motel until money ran out. They found temporary housing with local acquaintances, but that ended, too. Kongkham used the playground as a last resort while she searched for work, Kongkham’s attorney, assistant public defender Dione Trawick, told the judge.

Authorities say Kongkham and her daughters spent weeks living in the hole she and her daughters dug under a playground near State Road A1A and Sebastian Street. They ate, slept and went to the bathroom in the pit, unnoticed by playing children and passersby.

Kongkham’s older daughter was found by a Fort Lauderdale police officer on Dec. 4, 2008, at the Galleria mall, begging for food. The girl, who was covered with bug bites, told authorities her mother had abandoned her.

Kongkham and her other daughter were found two weeks later in a cardboard box outside a Tamarac strip shopping center.

In court, Kongkham said her actions stemmed from desperation, not lawlessness: “I did not know American law. I did not know the words ‘neglect’ and ‘desertion’ until now.”

Prosecutor Adriana Alcalde said Kongkham’s selfish, neglectful behavior deserved punishment of 10 years in prison.

“What this woman made these kids live through was a nightmare,” Alcalde said. “She didn’t keep these children from harm’s way. She put them in harm’s way.”

Kongkham asked to be sentenced to time served so she could return to Pennsylvania to face pending kidnapping charges related to leaving the state with her daughters. The two girls have been reunited with their father. and live in Pennsylvania.

In pronouncing sentence, Holmes said she struggled to balance a mother’s love for her children with the peril she put them in.

“Ms. Kongkham’s children love her, she loves her children to the point she put them in jeopardy,” Holmes said. “She did what most mothers would do, albeit she didn’t go about it in the right way.”