An Ohio man faces A MONTH IN JAIL after he bullied, teased and taunted a 10-year-old girl with cerebral palsy and a video of the incident went viral.
William Bailey, 43, was sentenced earlier this week.
The taunting occurred on September 26, when Tricia Knight and her mother-in-law, Marie Prince, were waiting for her children's bus to return from school.
Knight's three kids, including 10-year-old Hope, attend Walker Elementary with Bailey's 9-year-old son, Joseph. What they saw was caught on an iPod camera by Prince.
William Bailey "was dragging his leg and patting his arm across his chest to pick his son Joseph up," said Knight. "I asked him to please stop doing this."
"'My daughter can see you,' I said. He then told his son to walk like the R-word."
The next day Knight posted the video on Facebook while Prince uploaded the video they called "Bus Stop Ignorance" to YouTube. Within days, the video went viral.
The Knight family has lived next door to the Baileys for the past two years, and this marked the culmination of rising tensions and intimidation against her kids.
In the days that followed, the Knight family filed a complaint with Canton City prosecutors.
Jennifer Fitzsimmons, the chief assistant city prosecutor for this case, says in the three years she's been in this role, she's never seen anything like this.
"I think when we look at cases, there's case law out there regarding people commenting and gesturing against race and religion," she told ABC News.
"But when there's nothing out there regarding disabilities, it took me a little bit longer to [decide]."
After Fitzsimmons reviewed the complaint, a police report based on a phone call from the Knight family, and the video captured by Prince, she decided to press charges.
"It was settled without Hope having to relive what she saw and how it impacted her," she said. "I think the trial could have been just as traumatic as the event itself."
Bailey, who works as a truck driver, was charged with two offenses. He was first charged for aggravated menacing, a misdemeanor of the first degree.
The victim was Knight, an incident she says took place the same day as the bus stop scene.
Bailey, she said, "was swinging a tow chain on his porch, saying he was going to choke me until I stopped twitching. I sent my kids with my mother-in-law to leave with them."
"My husband called the sheriff."
In Ohio, a menacing charge carries a maximum of 30 days in jail. The second charge, for the bus stop incident, was disorderly conduct, a misdemeanor of the fourth degree.
A disorderly conduct is a minor misdemeanor and carries no jail time.
Although Bailey's sentencing technically reflects the charges brought by his actions toward Knight, Hope's mother, Fitzsimmons said it all mattered in the end:
"Because the menacing misdemeanor charge was directed toward Hope's mother, and they're all interrelated, the judge took into account all the actions of Mr. Bailey."
Bailey "entered a plea of 'no contest' to a menacing charge and to disorderly conduct," said Fitzsimmons, and his sentence will go into effect on January 2.
A judge required Bailey to pay $400 in court costs as well as other fees. He was given a credit for one day, making his sentence 29 days, not the maximum 30.
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