MIAMI, Oct. 8 (UPI) -- A special education teacher in Miami Lakes, Fla., will serve two years probation for slipping hot sauce in an autistic student's soda, the child's parents say.
Mario Serralta, whose son was the target of Sylvia Tagle's crime, told the presiding judge in the teacher's child abuse case that Wednesday's sentence was too lenient and could set a bad precedent, Miami's WFOR-TV reported.
"It's really sad and you know what? It really, really sends a bad message to everyone," he said.
"Any child that goes to school deserves a safe place," the boy's mother, Annabelle Serralta, offered, "and to think that I thought he was in a safe place in ... safe hands, and to have someone harm him there is really upsetting."
Tagle, who is no longer a teacher at Bob Graham Education Center where the incident occurred, had faced up to five years in prison for putting hot sauce in the child's soda after he took the beverage from her desk without permission.
The ages of the child and Tagle were not reported.
WFOR said Tagle, who also was sentenced to 100 hours of community service, was convicted in September on child abuse charges over the incident. The exact date of the incident was not reported.
