Ex-Child TV Star Faces Jail for Protest

Former child TV star Pamelyn Ferdin was sentenced Tuesday in San Fernando Superior Court to 29 days in Los Angeles County Jail for possessing a “bull hook” at an animal rights protest.

Ferdin, 40, was released pending appeal.

The Santa Monica woman was facing up to six months in jail after having been convicted of a misdemeanor of having a bull hook while protesting a Circus Vargas performance in August at Pierce College in Woodland Hills.

The bull hook, which Ferdin said is used cruelly against circus elephants, has a wooden shaft larger than three-quarters of an inch in diameter, which violates a 1978 city law designed to keep demonstrators from possessing potentially dangerous objects.

Ferdin refused an offer of two years’ probation and a month of “heavy work” removing graffiti or trash. She said she could not accept the offer because it would have prevented her from participating in more demonstrations for two years.

“I couldn’t go to these protests, because if I was arrested I would have broken my probation and then face more [jail] time,” said Ferdin, a co-founder of the Animal Defense League’s Los Angeles chapter. “I would rather protest and educate the public and spend [29] days in jail.”

The case will go back to court in six months to a year. If Ferdin loses her appeal, she will be sent to jail.

Ferdin appeared in hundreds of sitcoms, commercials and made-for-TV movies in the 1960s and ‘70s. For years she provided the voice of Lucy in animated versions of “Peanuts.”