Mother arraigned in beating

SOUTH BEND -- A mother caught on video beating her 4-year-old daughter in a parking lot will be able to visit the child once or twice a week while the girl is in temporary foster care, her attorney said.\nMadelyne Gorman Toogood was scheduled to meet with her daughter, Martha, at a safe house for about 90 minutes Tuesday. The visit was to be supervised.\nCharles Smith, director of the St. Joseph County Office of Family and Children, said his agency tries to schedule such meetings quickly.\n"We want to, as much as possible, to retain the ties and connections to the families because our initial goal, if at all possible, is to reunify them with the parents," he said.\nToogood, 25, was arraigned on a felony charge of battery to a child and an innocent plea was entered on her behalf in a hearing Monday.\nAttorney Steven Rosen called the plea a formality and later said there was no point in trying to challenge the surveillance videotape in court.\n"We will probably enter a guilty plea and throw ourselves on the mercy of the court," Rosen said after the arraignment.\nHe added: "If a jury has to sit in judgment of this lady, the jury is going to come back with a guilty verdict ... I'm confronted with a videotape that shows Attila the Hun, no question about it."\nIf convicted, Toogood faces up to three years in prison, though her attorney said he would try to strike a deal with prosecutors. She faces a hearing on Oct. 7.\nProsecutor Christopher Toth said the evidence against Toogood was compelling.\n"Obviously jail is something you have to seriously consider in a case like this," he said.\nToogood, a mother of three, had no comment as she left court. She remained free on $5,000 bail.\nToogood told reporters Sunday she hit her daughter in the head and back and pulled her hair but did not punch her. On the video of the Sept. 13 incident, which has been televised nationally, Toogood appears to make punching motions toward her daughter inside a sport utility vehicle.\nRosen said he believed the hitting took place because Martha misbehaved in the store, taking toys out of packages and wandering away, prompting store employees to page Toogood twice.\nA doctor examined the girl at Toogood's request in Bay Head, N.J., before she turned herself in over the weekend, authorities said. They said the physician, Dr. Jack Haberman, found no medical problems and no long-term signs of abuse.\nToogood decided to take pictures of her daughter without clothes on "as documentation of their contention that she had not been abused," said Kenneth W. Keller, a Monmouth County, N.J., prosecutor.\nHaberman had the film developed at a pharmacy, where workers alerted police about possible child pornography, Keller said. The prosecutor said those fears were probably unwarranted but an investigation was continuing.\nToogood said she hopes to be reunited with her daughter and that she, her daughter, and her husband, John, plan to start parenting classes.\nShe said her two young sons are staying with family.\nChild protection officials have two weeks to recommend whether other family members should get temporary custody of Martha and whether the Toogoods regain custody.