Sheldy Nelson: Drunk Mom Who Shared Margarita With Her 2-Year-Old Gets Second Chance From Court

Sheldy Nelson, 42, was charged earlier this year with child endangerment after a bizarre incident last summer when she got drunk with her daughter at a restaurant in Salem, Massachusetts. The only problem was, her daughter was just two years old.

Nelson, who is from Haiti but, according to her social media, attended junior college in Massachusetts. She faced deportation back to Haiti if she had been convicted. But her trial on child endangerment charges scheduled to begin on Wednesday, a judge decided to give the mom a second chance.

It was back on August 29 of last year when employees at Brodie’s Seaport Restaurant on Pickering Wharf in Salem noticed that Nelson was repeatedly allowing her two-year-old daughter to sip from her Margarita.

When they asked her to stop not just once but twice, she not only failed to comply, she poured some of the drink into the toddler’s sippy cup. She told the restaurant staff that she was pouring only ice from her drink into the little girl’s cup. Police later checked out the sippy cup and noticed a distinct smell of booze.

So the employees at the restaurant kicked Nelson out.

Police soon got a call about a woman sitting in a chair in front of the Salem Waterfront Hotel and Suites, a hotel near to Brodie’s Seaport, who appeared to be in some sort if distress.

That’s where two officers found Nelson and her two-year-old — both of them apparently drunk. The mom appeared “lethargic,” and so did the toddler. In fact, Nelson was so hammered that she slurred her speech and even vomited as the police were trying to ask her questions to figure out what was going on.

Both mom and daughter were taken to a hospital where medical staff found alcohol in the little girl’s bloodstream.

According to her lawyer, the child was removed from Nelson’s custody. But during a September supervised visit with a social worker present, Nelson became angry at the he fact that the social worker was there and began shaking the child, resulting in her arrest.

But before her scheduled trial Wednesday, Judge Robert Brennan decided to let the drunk mom off the hook — at least for now. Brennan put off the trial for another 11 months, dictating a set of conditions for Nelson to meet. If she does, she’ll avoid trail altogether and the charges will be thrown out.

Sheldy Nelson will be be subject to random testing for alcohol use and must take a parenting class, the judge decreed. She must also comply with any instructions from the state’s Department of Children and Families.

[Image: LinkedIn]