Cops: Parents Used Pot As "Bargaining Tool"

MAY 6--A Florida couple used marijuana as a “bargaining tool” to get their teenage daughters--ages 13 and 14--to perform household chores and excel in school, police allege.

Joey and Chad Mudd (seen at right) are facing multiple felony child abuse charges, court records show. The children were provided the pot, investigators say, in the family’s home in Largo, a city 20 miles from Tampa Bay.

Chad Mudd, 36, has also been charged with providing the girls with cocaine, which he allegedly snorted with them earlier this year while the trio was inside his truck.

According to arrest affidavits, Joey Mudd, 34, admitted to smoking pot with her children on five occasions, and referred to the provision of the drug “as a form of a ‘bargaining tool.’”

Charged with two counts of child abuse, Mudd was released from the Pinellas County jail early this morning after posting $5000 bond. She has been ordered to have no contact with her children, who are in the care of a a relative.

Court records list Mudd’s employer as a pediatrics care practice.

Chad Mudd, a restaurant worker, remains locked up on six counts of child abuse and a cocaine possession count. (2 pages)