A Saginaw mother accused of repeatedly giving her three children THC gummies was back in court Thursday, Oct. 2, and asked a judge to amend her bond conditions to allow her more access to her kids.
Stephany L. Mogg, 34, appeared before Saginaw County District Judge A.T. Frank on Thursday for a preliminary examination. Mogg is charged with three counts of third-degree child abuse. The felony is punishable by up to two years’ incarceration and five years’ probation.
Defense attorney Aubrie N. Smith stated Mogg wished to waive her right to the hearing and have her case bound over to Circuit Court for trial. Saginaw County Assistant Prosecutor Noah Johnson did not object to this.
Smith then asked Frank to amend Mogg’s bond conditions, which currently prohibit her from having contact with her children without supervision from the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services. DHS has been unwilling to supervise the visits, Smith said. She proposed Mogg’s mother serve as a third-party chaperone for such visits.
Johnson opposed this.
Frank asked Mogg if she currently had any drugs in her system. Mogg replied she would test positive for THC, the psychoactive component in marijuana. The judge asked why she is using the drug, to which Smith replied Mogg suffers from various health issues and she uses marijuana to manage her pain as an alternative to more habit-forming medications.
Frank opted to take the bond modification and bind over under advisement, saying he wanted more context from the prosecution on why they believe Mogg’s bond shouldn’t be altered.
Mogg’s children — ages 6, 10, and 12 — are currently in their father’s custody, Smith told the judge.
Mogg’s case dates to March 10, when the children’s father called 911 from his Midland County home to make a child-abuse complaint. The father told police that after he picked up his kids from Mogg’s home on Saginaw’s West Side, they acted strangely and said their mother had fed them gummies, according to Michigan State Police reports obtained by MLive via the Freedom of Information Act.
The father took his children to a medical facility, where all three tested positive for THC, reports state.
The children were forensically interviewed at the Saginaw CAN Council on March 19. All claimed their mother gave them THC gummies.
“This started a few months after Stephany was granted overnight visits with them,” a trooper wrote in his report.
The children said Mogg would drive them to a “building that looked like a gas station but without any gas pumps” and would have them stay in the vehicle as she went in to buy the gummies, reports state. Mogg told her kids they weren’t allowed in the store, they told police.
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