Fri Oct 2, 3:34 pm ET

GREAT FALLS, Mont. – A Montana woman accused of letting her 12-year-old daughter drive three siblings to day care has been fined nearly $1,000. Angela Parenteau entered a no contest plea to one count of criminal endangerment Thursday in Municipal Court in Great Falls. Three other criminal endangerment charges were dropped under a plea agreement.

Prosecutors say in March, Parenteau allowed her daughter drive three younger siblings from their house in Vaughn to a day care about 15 miles away in Great Falls. Police say Parenteau claimed she was too sick to drive and on medication.

The state said it agreed to the plea agreement because the 12-year-old girl did not want to testify against her mother.

Wow. She is fortunate nothing happened to those children and she got kind of a light fine for taking that risk.

wow....regardless of if a minor child wants to press charges or not...the mother should have gotten worse charges....

it's not the child pressing charges. the child didn't want to testify in court. without that testimony, it may have been harder to prove the DA's case enough for a harder punishment

well this was out in the country. for cripe sakes..

there r kids that drive like 12 year olds every day on my street of silicon blvd. take the tale of kenny for instance. he looks 12.
.... at the oaktit bar near my abode, that gets over-service, and gets behind the wheel.
case in point.denny/lenny or kenny (i forgot his real name) used to scream and yell that his father wanted to date me...well i had to dye my hair first to look younger, then he would fly me in his helocopter to his mine in IDEEHO.
so i countered with i was not dyeing my hair, and who the hell wanted to fly to a mine that had rattlesnakes in it. recently, i told kenny/denny/lenny he needed to get a face lift, and dye his hair cause it was turning gray.
so kenny countered with trying to run over me in the parking lot while he was on the cellphone...he was drinking, driving, looking very young..
then, i also heard that queen diana just beat up april and the 2 women used to run the place. no more. they look like they r 12 2, but drink like fish. well i guess this story is about politics, current events, and news. it happened recently.

letting a 12 year old drive her siblings around is illegal and dangerous whether it's the city or country. in the country there are dangers as well....animals, pot holes, etc

The punishment is not good enough for her.She's very lucky nothing happened to the children or to anyone else. If she was to sick to drive then she should have gotten another adult to drive them,or have them all just stay home.