Cops: Mom gave her children beer and cocaine

Daniel Tepfer, Staff Writer

07:46 a.m., Friday, July 22, 2011

BRIDGEPORT -- A city woman was in custody after police said she forced her 4-year-old son to chug a bottle of beer and then gave her 10-month-old daughter beer and cocaine.

Juliette Dunn, 29, of Success Village, was charged with two counts of risk of injury to a child and two counts of second-degree assault and was being held in lieu of $100,000 bond. A female companion, 33-year-old Lisa Jefferson, was arrested on the same charges and also had a $100,000 bond.

According to police, officers were patrolling Success Village June 28 when they were waved down by a neighbor who complained that a mother was feeding her children beer on the playground.

Police said they spotted Dunn and Jefferson sitting at the playground, the young children on the ground next to them. As officers approached them, police said they spotted an empty 40-ounce bottle of Steel Reserve beer on the ground beside the boy. They said a baby bottle next to the baby contained a dark liquid that smelled strongly of an alcohol beverage. Dunn was identified as the children's mother.

Police said witnesses told them that Jefferson had handed the bottle of beer to the boy and ordered him to chug it. When he had finished it police said Jefferson called the boy an alcoholic.

Both children were taken to Bridgeport Hospital where police said both the boy and girl tested positive for alcohol and the 10-month-old also had cocaine in her system. While being examined, police said the 4-year-old told a social worker he likes, "Natural Ice beer, Budweiser beer, but didn't like the taste of Dog-Bite beer."

Police said Dunn told them Jefferson gives her son a bottle of beer everyday but she didn't know how her 10-month-old daughter tested positive for cocaine since she doesn't breast feed her.