A North Carolina mother who was arrested after video surfaced of her 1-year-old daughter allegedly smoking marijuana is being defended by complete strangers on the internet.
On Wednesday, March 21, Brianna Ashanti Lofton, 20, of Raleigh, North Carolina, was arrested and charged with two counts of felony child abuse, contributing to delinquency, and possession of marijuana after videos appeared to show her 1-year-old child inhaling the smoke from a cigarillo. Her child has since been taking into the custody of child protective services.
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While Lofton remains in jail on $100,000 bond and faces up to 17 years in prison, many people are coming to her defense, believing that she has been “ridiculously overcharged.”
“Those sentences is kind of harsh. I see that she has learnt her lesson. They give mothers who don’t care for there kids in worse situations, all kinds of alternatives without prison time,” one user wrote on the Raleigh Police Department’s Facebook post regarding the incident.
“What she did was very wrong but some y’all smoke weed (pot) around your kids think it’s okay,” another user commented.
“When you know better, you do better. Yes this is sad and very heartbreaking but instead of condemning her, pray for her,” one person wrote.
Lofton’s arrest came after two videos on Facebook appeared to show an adult hand holding a cigarillo to the child’s lips. The child is then seen inhaling and exhaling the smoke in both clips. According the arrest warrant, Lofton is accused of “causing, encouraging and aiding a one-year-old child to smoke a marijuana blunt” and purposefully hurting her child with the “inhalation of marijuana.”
During Lofton’s hearing, the Wake County prosecutor argued for Lofont’s bail to be doubled, since Lofton is already on probation for a July 2017 driving while consuming conviction. She is also facing charges of simple assault stemming from an August incident, and was pulled over for driving with a revoked license in October. She was also arrested for marijuana possession in November.
Elliot argued for bond to be cut by half, noting that Lofton is hoping to earn her general education diploma and was “not attempting to get her child back at this point.”
“This is the first … kind of this charge that she has ever looked at,” Elliot said, reports the Associated Press. “She does have family support.”
