Mom of Nude Dancer Suicide Gets Jail Term

A woman believed to be the only mother ever charged in connection with her child’s suicide was sentenced today to a year in jail, two years of community control and three years of probation.

“Taking your daughter to a naked bar and watching her dance is not a proper thing for a mother to do--or acceptable,” Broward Circuit Judge Arthur Franza said before he sentenced Theresa Jackson, 41.

Jackson’s lawyer had asked that she be sentenced to community control, noting her age, lack of prior record and her remorse for the suicide of her 17-year-old daughter, Tina Mancini.

The jail term was given for Jackson’s conviction on forgery. Under community control for her conviction on procuring a sexual performance by a child, Jackson will be ordered to remain in her residence except for court-approved activities. The probation was for her conviction of child abuse.

Tina Mancini put her mother’s .357 Magnum in her mouth and pulled the trigger in March, 1986, three months after she started work as a nude dancer.

Jackson faced up to 25 years in prison on charges of child abuse, procuring a sexual performance by a child and forgery.

Jackson was convicted last October after a widely publicized trial in which she was accused of forcing her daughter into nude dancing and then living off the teen-ager’s earnings.