kill like it's s'posed to do ♪ ♪ baby your memory must be bulletproof ♪ ♪ all my favorite country songs guess they must've got it wrong ♪ ♪ 'cause i'm still here and you ain't gone you ain't gone baby ♪ ♪ ooh ooh oh-oh you ain't gone baby ♪ ♪ ooh ooh baby your memory must be bulletproof ♪ [ cheers and applause ] this ishtline. >> tonight, a mom arrested in front of her children after her ten year old walked alone to the

store. >> what am i under arrest for? >> for reckless endangerment. >> i had to ask to tell my children goodbye. >> igniting a social media firestorm over free range kids. >> who are we kidding, y'all? i've probably let my kids do way worse things. >> parenting never had to be 24 over seven until now. >> we used to allow children some freedoms that we no longer allow them, and i don't think that's to their benefit. >> just how much independence should kids have? plus, trump's nominee for attorney general under fire. >> this is not a political hit job. both my clients testified that they had sex with representative gaetz and that the payments they received from him were in part for sexual favors. >> matt gaetz, also accused of having sex with a minor, paying for sex and engaging in illegal drug use. accusations he denies and abc's late breaking exclusive details about gaetz's $10,000 venmo payments to two women. and did jelly roll give prince harry a tattoo? >> you give me a tattoo, and

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>> thanks for joining tonight. is it illegal for a ten year old child to walk alone to the store? well, according to police in mineral bluff, georgia. yes. meet a mom who was

arrested hours after her son did just that. here's abc's erielle reshef. >> what am i under arrest for. >> for reckless endangerment. >> and how was i recklessly endangering my child. >> brittany patterson never imagined that she could end up arrested for something like this. >> i was shocked. surprised. disbelief. couldn't really understand what was going on or why they told me to put my hands behind my back. and then i had to ask to tell my children goodbye. >> recently, the georgia mother of four making national headlines. >> a georgia mother is facing jail time because her nearly 11 year old son walked into town by himself. >> as a result, she was arrested. fingerprints and mug shots taken. >> she says he was never in any danger. >> taken into custody after her ten year old son left home by himself and was found walking alone in their small town of mineral bluff. brittany charged with reckless conduct, sparking

a nationwide debate over what's right and wrong when it comes to a child's independence. in the comments yesterday, half was for her, half was against her. people everywhere weighing in on all sides. >> who are we kidding, y'all? i've probably let my kids do way worse things. >> even on talk shows, i say please drop the charges for this mom. >> she doesn't deserve to be arrested for this. >> if any parent has read any of the beverly cleary books, the ramona and henry huggins. those kids were roaming the neighborhood in a way that we would call free range now. we used to allow children some freedoms that we no longer allow them, and i don't think that's to their benefit or to ours. >> the crime was that she didn't know where her kid was for a little while, because she left him at home, and to her surprise, he didn't stay home. it's just so normal. and to make that into a crime is insane. >> it seems like everyone has a take on patterson's case. how much freedom for a kid is too

much? >> if we don't give our children opportunities to be more independent, they don't get to exercise those muscles and think of them as someone who is capable of being independent. >> according to the american academy of pediatrics, children are generally ready to walk alone safely without adult supervision. at around ten years old. parents watching this story who are kind of thinking to themselves, what would i do in my own scenario? >> no parent always knows where their kid is. you know? and it's not a crime that that kids are human beings and sometimes make bad decisions, sometimes don't tell you where they are. that doesn't mean you're a bad parent. that means you're a human being with a fellow human being who's younger than you. >> recently, the surgeon general issued an advisory about parents feeling high levels of stress, highlighting that 41% of parents say that most days they are so stressed they cannot function and 48% say most days their stress is completely overwhelming compared to other adults, and that time demands

and concerns about children's safety can contribute. >> the surgeon general just did this big study where he said that parents are really miserable. well, of course, if you're expected to be with your child every single second in parenting never had to be 24 over seven until now. but i don't blame the parents. i blame this culture that talks endlessly about the impact of every parenting decision on every atom of their kid's being. >> if you are anxious, i guarantee your kid is catching it. if your kid is anxious, i guarantee that you are catching it. what happens is we pass that anxiety back and forth and we start creating anxious patterns in our family that actually make anxiety worse. >> it was just a normal day for us. >> brittany patterson's ordeal began when she says she left home late october to bring one of her older kids to the doctor. her younger son, sean, who was nearly 11 at the time, stayed home. >> my dad is there all the time, so there's always an adult in the home. and so off i went to

go take my other son to his doctor's appointment. >> sometime later that day, according to a fannin county sheriff's office report, her son sean, who has since turned 11, walked less than a mile into town to go to the dollar general. >> there's a little tiny post office. little tiny fire station, a baptist church, a gas station, and a dollar general. >> authorities discovered him walking alone after getting a call from a concerned resident. police dropping him off at home, according to the report. >> he was not missing. i had just seen him two minutes before, so i knew he was on the property and i was not concerned. so the whole idea that he was missing, i feel like is a is not accurate. >> but a few hours later, police returned, arresting brittany in front of her kids. the warrant claiming she willingly and knowingly did endanger the bodily safety of her juvenile son. her attorney disputes this. >> i was not in disbelief

because happens, and as soon i learned more of the facts, it was clear to me no crime was committed. >> david delucas is the attorney representing brittany. he says she didn't do anything illegal. brittany has declined to sign a safety plan put forth by the georgia division of family and children's services that included putting a gps tracking app on her son's phone. >> if you call a document a safety plan, maybe what's in it ought to make the child more safe. and by the way, that assumes he was unsafe in the first place, which he was not. part of why brittany declines to sign it is he wasn't unsafe. >> what would you say to brittany patterson? >> right on. who hasn't had that experience? what parent in the world has not had some time when they thought their kid was one place, and it turned out they were another? >> lenore skenazy can relate to brittany's story. back in 2008, she too divided the country. when she let her nine year old

child take the subway by himself in new york city and published an article about it. so i think one of the first questions as parents we might have is, did he have a phone or a watch, any communication device to get in touch with you? god forbid. were you worried about that? >> if i was worried about his safety, i wouldn't have done it. >> she didn't expect the backlash that followed, at times dubbed on tv as america's worst mom. >> what if something, you know, god forbid, had happened? >> 17 years later, i finally realized that that was my real crime, was trusting my kid to do something without me being independent, being out in the world. that was the charge against me. >> in retrospect, looking back at your son's childhood and now he's he's grown up. do you stand by your decision to prioritize his independence, even in the face of all that backlash? you received? >> i do, and i stand by anyone's decision to prioritize their children's independence because independence is trust.

>> skenazy is now the president of the nonprofit let grow an organization that promotes so-called free range parenting. how important is this conversation? >> if you actually let your kid do something by themselves, you let them walk to the store. you let them walk the dog. you let them make the pancakes. you're allowed to be imperfect, if that's what we're going to call it, because perfection has never been a requirement for being a parent or a kid. >> as for brittany, she says she just hopes to be the best mom and example for her kids. >> to the critics. that's i mean, that's fine for them to have that opinion of this if that's how they choose to raise their children. i don't begrudge them for that. i want my kids to be independent, contributing members of society. i want them to have jobs. i want them to be respectful, all of the things so that they can have a good life. that's my goal as a mother. >> our thanks to ariel when we come back. former congressman matt gaetz is facing a litany of

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>> welcome back. perhaps the most contentious nominee for president elect trump's new cabinet is former florida congressman matt gaetz. for attorney general, in part because of a house ethics committee investigation against him. we sat down with the lawyer representing two young women whose testimony is at the heart of the case against gaetz. those

accusations of paid sex with a minor and illicit drugs, all of which he denies. this particular event. what did your client witness? >> she testified in july of 2017 at this house party, and she looked to her right, and she saw representative gaetz having sex with her friend, who was 17. >> the lawyer for two young women describing explosive testimony about former congressman matt gaetz, now trump's nominee to be attorney general. >> both my clients testified that they had sex with representative gaetz and that the payments they received from him were in part for sexual favors. >> gaetz's nomination to be the nation's top law enforcement official, setting off a firestorm in part because the florida congressman had been under investigation by the house ethics committee. >> the majority of the testimony concerned illegal drug use and illicit sexual activities. >> leopard's clients were 19 and 21 when they say they met gaetz, who began paying them to attend drug fueled parties and have sex

with them. the men at those parties were decades older, ranging from 30 to 50. how would you characterize these events? >> typically, a small group of individuals, 5 or 10, and they got together to party to take drugs and have sex, essentially at one of those sex parties, his client told the ethics committee she witnessed something involving one of her friends. she witnessed her friend, who was a minor at the time, having sex with representative gaetz against a game table. >> and how old was her friend at the time? she was 17, according to the testimony, and at the time, he was a sitting congressman. >> i don't know if she was aware of who he was at the time, but he was a sitting congressman for about six months. >> would it be clear that matt gaetz could have known that she was a minor? >> i can't speak to that. but what i can tell you is that my client testified to the house that her understanding was that matt gaetz did not know, and that when he learned that she was a minor, that he broke off things and did not continue a sexual relationship until she turned 18.

>> when leopard's clients were called to testify, the ethics committee already had receipts totaling $10,000 worth of online payments to the two witnesses. >> the house essentially put on the zoom interview a list of venmo payments or paypal payments, and went through what was this payment for? and so most of the times, my clients testified, well, that was for sex on such and such date. sometimes they didn't recall what the payments were for. and so they said, you know, i can't remember what that payment was for. >> gaetz has repeatedly denied all wrongdoing. a spokesman for the trump transition saying matt gaetz will be the next attorney general. these are baseless allegations intended to derail the second trump administration. trump tonight defiant. mr. president, are you reconsidering the nomination of matt gaetz? >> no. >> and previously on fox news. gaetz specifically denied being involved with a minor. >> i have not had a relationship with a 17 year old. that is totally false. >> he's also gone on the record as saying that this event did not happen. >> she testified that it did happen and she recalls that she has no motivation to lie. no one

has paid her any money to come forward. >> leopard says his clients never wanted to speak out, but the federal investigations required them to hand over their phones and testify. >> they've never willingly accused matt gaetz of anything. they've only responded to subpoenas that have required them to testify under oath, truthfully. >> they want you to come forward and speak on their behalf for a reason. >> they do not want to be under the microscope. the only thing that my witnesses want is to be left alone. if they woke up tomorrow, juju and they never heard the term matt gaetz ever again. i think that would probably be the happiest day of their lives. >> but leopard says his clients believe the american people should know what took place behind closed doors. >> they're not here for politics. in fact, as far as i know, neither one of them have voted in the last two elections. this is not a political hit job. this is not an anti matt gaetz stance per se. it is more that this is what happened to them. it's true. and they want the american people to know about this as they consider their future attorney general potentially, he says one of his

clients was a student when she met gaetz, and both say they were living paycheck to paycheck. my clients were there just essentially to pay their rent. they're literally, hey, i got to make rent this month. let's go out and go to some of these events. >> to be clear, they don't ever accuse any of the men in this party as coercing them to have sex. >> that's correct. >> they are open about being paid to have sex. >> yes, that's correct. >> after trump nominated him to be attorney general, gaetz immediately resigned from congress. essentially ending the ethics investigation. but the controversy has not gone away. the ethics committee is slated to vote tomorrow on whether to release the report. the speaker of the house says they shouldn't. a growing number of republican senators, including markwayne mullin, who said on nbc they need to see the house report as part of the confirmation process. >> i believe the senate should have access to that now. should it be released to the public or not, that that's i guess that will be part of the negotiations. >> the two women testified that

their interactions with gaetz weren't just about sex, but involved illicit drugs as well. >> there's also group texts between my clients and representative gaetz that did pertain to illegal drugs. >> so i know that the verbiage uses a little bit of street slang. what were the terms that were used? >> that's a good question. so as a criminal defense lawyer, when i'm looking at a case, no one ever says mr. drug dealer, please give me some drugs. so the terms that representative gaetz used was code words. so he would ask using terms like vitamins or his favorite term was party favors. >> what did your clients tell the committee that party favors or vitamins met? >> so it was mdma or molly or ecstasy, which was present at every one of the gatherings. >> and your clients testified to doing these illicit drugs with matt gaetz? >> no, they did mdma at every party, ecstasy at every party. they actually were specifically questioned about whether or not they witnessed representative gaetz taking the drugs while he requested them. they didn't recall a specific incident where he put ecstasy in his mouth. so

they testified that they didn't recall that. >> do you think there was some pressure around taking drugs? >> yes. that they were expected to take drugs. some of the text messages that they produced said, i don't really want to go to this event because i don't want to do drugs. they did testify that the drugs sometimes impaired their judgment and that they were expected to do drugs, but then they were forced to do drugs, but that the drugs made it easier to do what they were doing. >> his young clients told the ethics committee that gaetz sometimes paid their expenses to travel with them. >> you know, there are trips such as to the bahamas or to new york, so you can't characterize them as just one type of thing. >> do you know how many parties your clients went to and had sex with representative gaetz? >> well, not all of them were parties. so some of them were events such as the they attended election events like hotels. they went with him to new york for a taping on fox news. >> if you look, this is the new left. >> melissa. 10 to 15 times, i think, was the testimony about the number of times they might have had sex with representative

gaetz. >> their testimony is that representative gaetz took them across state lines for the purpose of having sex. >> that's correct. paid them for their tickets to come to new york. they went to broadway shows. and one interesting characteristic, they were asked the question, you know, was it ever a chore? and at least one of my clients mentioned that essentially they were asked to go and have sex with representative gaetz, and then they could go out. >> what show did they see? >> pretty woman about a sex worker. i had not even thought about that. >> gaetz was previously under investigation by the department of justice as well. the doj dropping the case in 2023 without any action. of course, abc will have live coverage tomorrow on the house ethics committee's vote. when we come back. >> trust me, you wouldn't want nobody else doing this but me. >> a small one? yeah. >> whoa, whoa. >> the deal struck between prince harry and jelly roll before the first ever winter before the first ever winter invictus games. with

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>> and finally, tonight, jellyrt ready for the first ever winter invictus games. >> you give me a tattoo and then you come and play the invictus games, jelly roll and prince harry appearing on x to make their alliance skin deep, the singer will perform at the first ever winter edition of the game, founded by harry for wounded service members. these guys are the stars of the show. >> the games kick off february 8th. >> for me, it doesn't matter whether i win a medal or not. what matters is putting in the time to train just to compete and, you know, have that