{"id":8598,"date":"2007-12-05T13:38:26","date_gmt":"2007-12-05T18:38:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/2007\/12\/05\/wendy-cooks-plea-deal-gives-her-an"},"modified":"2011-08-05T14:53:36","modified_gmt":"2011-08-05T18:53:36","slug":"wendy-cooks-plea-deal-gives-her-another-chance-at-rehabilitation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/2007\/12\/05\/wendy-cooks-plea-deal-gives-her-another-chance-at-rehabilitation\/","title":{"rendered":"wendy cook’s plea deal gives her another chance at rehabilitation"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\" Wendy Cook Update:<\/strong><\/em> There’s a new chapter in the sad story of Wendy Cook, the 37-year-old daughter of Funny Cide<\/a> owner Jack Knowlton, who was charged with performing sex acts and snorting cocaine with her then 2-month-old son and 5-year old daughter in the back seat of her car.<\/p>\n

Cook was arrested in a bizarre prostitution sting in Schenectady in early October (see our prior post<\/a>; scroll down page). According to Channel 13 in Albany, NY, in its noon report “Mom facing sex, drug charges takes plea deal<\/a>” (WNYT.com13<\/em>, Dec. 5, 2007):<\/p>\n

“Felony charges against Cook were reduced to misdemeanors Wednesday. She is now charged with reckless endangerment and endangering the welfare of a child.<\/p>\n

“Under the plea agreement she will spend nine months in a residential treatment center.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

For Ms. Cook’s sake and that of her children and entire family, we wish her the best of luck. If I had represented her children in this case, I surely would have agreed with this outcome.<\/p>\n

update<\/strong><\/em> (Dec. 6, 2007): Today’s Albany Times Union<\/em> provides further explanation about the plea and the reasoning behind it (see “Mother pleads guilty to endangerment charges<\/a>: Wendy Knowlton Cook, 37, snorted cocaine off newborn son’s stomach, police say,” Dec. 6, 2007), saying that “As part of a plea deal, Cook must complete a rehabilitation program in Sullivan County which could last up to two years. Cook faces two years in prison if she fails to complete the program, according to Schenectady County District Attorney Robert M. Carney.” In addition:<\/p>\n

\n

“I understand why police investigators were so outraged by Ms. Cook’s conduct, but unfortunately, there was no provable felony here,” Carney said in a statement released by his office. “She was prostituting herself for drugs and using them in the presence of her children, but since no drugs were recovered, no drug charges could be brought.<\/p>\n

“Police charged her with reckless endangerment in the first degree which requires proof that her driving created a grave risk of death,” he said. “Police did not see her driving, she did not have an accident, and no one was injured.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

update<\/em><\/strong> (April 30, 2008): See “Cook answers to probation violation<\/a>” (wnyt.com, April 29, 2008).<\/p>\n

update<\/em><\/strong> (May 30, 2008): See “Mother to be sent to drug rehab<\/a>” (Daily Gazette<\/em>, May 30, 2008) “Knowlton-Cook\u2019s attorney, Jake Hogan, explained that her earlier reluctance [to continue in rehab] was that she couldn\u2019t find a program that would allow her to continue to see her children. A program has been found, the DayTop facility in Rhinebeck, Hogan said.”<\/p>\n

afterwords<\/strong><\/em> (Nov. 8, 2008): Read about Wendy getting her kids back and receiving probation, by scrolling down to the second topic at this post<\/a>, dated Nov. 8, 2008.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

home for Christmas: \"holy<\/span>.
\nmy childhood desk drawer
\nempty<\/p>\n

first Christmas \u2013
\nour baby sleeps through
\nthe unwrapping of his gifts<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026.. by Michael Dylan Welch<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span> ..
\n\u201chome for Christmas\u201d – from Open Window<\/em><\/a> – haiku & photo
\n\u201cfirst Christmas\u201d – frogpond<\/em><\/a> XXIX: 2 (2006)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n


\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201ceasy to assemble\u201d
\nI put it back and
\ngrab a teddybear<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/span> …………………………………. by dagosan<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wendy Cook Update: There’s a new chapter in the sad story of Wendy Cook, the 37-year-old daughter of Funny Cide owner Jack Knowlton, who was charged with performing sex acts and snorting cocaine with her then 2-month-old son and 5-year old daughter in the back seat of her car. Cook was arrested in a bizarre […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":94,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[555,1414,2927],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8598","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-haiku-or-senryu","category-qs-quickies","category-schenectady-synecdoche"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kP1R-2eG","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8598","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/94"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8598"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8598\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12392,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8598\/revisions\/12392"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}