Mom gets 3 years for threatening child

A Bensenville mother has been sentenced to three years in prison for holding a butcher knife to the throat of her 14-month-old son during an online video chat with the child's father, who watched helplessly from his Army post in South Korea.

Tanika Bryant, 35, pleaded guilty but mentally ill last month to aggravated domestic battery in the May 2010 incident at her home on the 100 block of George Street.

Prosecutors said Bryant's husband contacted local authorities after he witnessed Bryant raise their son's arms above the boy's head and hold a butcher knife to his throat during a live Internet chat. The husband, who recorded the conversation on DVD, then saw her cover the boy's nose and mouth before throwing him to the floor.

“(The infant) was in great distress during the incident, crying and struggling to get away from the defendant,” prosecutors said in a court filing, which noted that Bryant “smiled into the camera” as she threatened the boy with the knife.

Police arrived to find the child unharmed. They located a butcher knife in a bedroom where Bryant said she had just talked to her husband.

A psychiatric report filed in court by Bryant's attorney says she suffered a psychotic episode that stemmed from depression. The report says Bryant was using a combination of diet pills, antidepressants and alcohol, and was stressed by her husband's redeployment overseas, the loss of her job and other financial problems.

The doctor reported that, with the combination of substances, Bryant experienced “agitation, activation, irritability and loss of sleep resulting an unforeseeable and unintended brief psychotic episode.”

“As Ms. Bryant has prided herself on being a good mother, she displayed shock, sadness and sincere remorse for her behavior, for which she has no independent memory,” the psychiatrist wrote. “Upon seeing the video, while being interviewed by the investigator, she displayed extreme emotional distress, appeared shocked and horrified, and sobbed uncontrollably.”

Bryant, who received credit for more than a year in the county jail, was sentenced Wednesday by DuPage County Judge Blanche Hill Fawell. Bryant had no prior criminal history.

Assistant State's Attorney Anne Therieau said the child has since been reunited with his father, who now lives in another state.