The lawyer for a teenage mother accused of photographing her baby apparently smoking a marijuana bong has claimed it wasn’t a pot pipe at all.

Steven Whittington, representing 19-year-old Rachel Stieringer, from Keystone Heights, Florida, said: ‘No bong was ever seized or even seen by law enforcement.

‘No evidence exists that the device was, in fact, a bong.’

But his motion to dismiss the case in Jacksonville was rejected after prosecutors revealed that Stieringer’s Facebook name was ‘rachelxreefer.’

Alarming: The picture of the baby posted on Facebook by the child's mother

And she goes under the same drug-related name on her Myspace page. Now She has agreed to a drugs rehabilitation programme.

Charged: The child's mother Rachel Stierlinger, who claims she took the photo as a joke

Stieringer took the disturbing image of her child sitting on a blanket wearing a nappy and putting the green glass smoking instrument to his mouth as if he were inhaling it.

She then posted it online, but child protection services stepped in when they were tipped off about the picture and Stierlinger was arrested.

Department of Children and Families spokesman John Harrell said: ‘We are alarmed that any parent would take pictures of their child next to what is obviously drug paraphernalia.’

Prosecutors claim she admitted the device was a bong and told them the baby started playing with it.

But Stieringer used her Facebook page to insist she would never put her child in danger and that the photo was a joke.

She wrote: ‘If u look at the picture u can see that there is no bowl in the TABACCO (sic) pipe.

‘And i took a pic to show one person and it was a mistake. I would never ever ever let him get high.’

She was charged with a misdemeanor count of possessing drug paraphernalia, but the case will be over once she completes the programme.

source: www.dailymail.co.uk

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