Video-tape dooms mom who beat baby

SOUTH BEND -- The woman caught on video beating her 4-year-old daughter in a department store parking lot will probably plead guilty eventually because no jury would find her innocent, her attorney said Monday.\nMadelyne Gorman Toogood, 25, was arraigned on a felony charge of battery to a child, and a magistrate entered an innocent plea on her behalf.\nHer attorney, Steven Rosen, said the innocent plea was just a formality.\n"If a jury has to sit in judgment on this lady, the jury is going to come back with a guilty verdict," he said. "I don't think there's anything, any expert of any degree in any type of credibility that can do anything about that tape. ... I'm confronted with a videotape that shows Attila the Hun, no question about it."\nHe said he will work with the prosecutor to try to reach a plea agreement. If not, "we will probably enter a guilty plea and throw ourselves on the mercy of the court," he said.\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. In all child abuse cases there has to be some kind of accountability," he said.\nEarlier Monday, a Probate Court judge gave child-protection officials two weeks to recommend who should care for Toogood's daughter, Martha, and ordered that the girl remain in foster care in the meantime.\nToogood will get a 90-minute supervised visit with her daughter on Tuesday at a safe house. She will only get to see her daughter once or twice a week, Rosen said.\nToogood also must meet daily with a pre-trial supervisor, which Rosen described as like a probation officer.\nIf convicted, Toogood could get up to three years in prison. She faces a hearing on Oct. 7.\nThe mother of three had no comment as she left court. She remained free on $5,000 bond.\n"People might think I'm a monster, but I've been a mother for six years, and no harm has come to my children before this, never," Toogood told CNN earlier Monday. "I'm sorry. That's all I can say."\nA doctor examined the girl and found no medical problems and no long-term signs of abuse, authorities said.\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.\n"Martha didn't deserve what she got," Toogood said over the weekend. "I just lost my temper."\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.\nToogood said she hopes to be reunited with her daughter and that she, her daughter, and her husband, John, plan to start parenting classes. "Anything that they want us to do, we will do," Toogood said.\nShe said her two young sons are staying with family.\nToogood said she and her husband have been living in Mishawaka for about six months, although a court official corrected her and said the address is actually in Granger.\nAfter the videotape began airing, Toogood went to Maryland to be with her parents, then went to New Jersey to visit family. When she returned on Saturday she had dyed her blonde hair brown.\nToogood's sister also was arraigned Monday on a charge of assisting a criminal.