No charges for Leesburg mom who gave 3-year-old son ‘swirly’ in toilet

The Leesburg mother seen in a viral video giving her 3-year-old son what she called a “swirly” in a toilet — a stunt she told authorities was a joke — will not be arrested, police said Wednesday.

Leesburg police asked for a child-abuse arrest warrant for the mother, Kaitlyn Wolf, 31, but the State Attorney’s Office declined the request.

Ric Ridgway, chief assistant state attorney for the Ocalabased State Attorney’s Office, said the case remains open even though no warrant was issued. The office can either issue the warrant later or submit a letter to Leesburg police saying it is declining to file charges, Ridgway said. He declined to comment further because of the open case.

Police received numerous complaints about the 13-second Facebook video that shows Wolf pinning her son’s arms behind his back, holding him upside down and dipping his head inside a toilet rim.

A child forensic interviewer talked to the young boy Tuesday and said the investigation showed “positive findings of threatened harm of mental injury due to bizarre punishment.”

However, the findings were “indeterminate of physical abuse and indeterminate of neglect due to inadequate supervision,” police said.

The state Department of Children and Families said Wednesday it is still investigating.

Wolf ’s 10-year-old son shot the footage and can be heard on camera saying, “God, that’s so mean.”

The Lake County mom told Fox 35 that her 3-year-old said a bad word, so she decided to discipline him with a “swirly.”

Wolf told the television station she had planned to put soap in his mouth but had to chase him around the house for about 10 minutes. “By the time I caught him, I was like, ‘Oh, we’re just going to stick his head in the toilet,’ like, as a joke.”

Police said the incident “calls for continued intervention for the welfare of the children involved” and asked DCF “to assure the children remain safe and have a safety plan.”

The video was posted Saturday afternoon by Misty McCormic, the ex-wife of Wolf’s boyfriend. It had been viewed 431,000 times as of Wednesday afternoon and shared by 10,000 Facebook users. McCormic did not name the person who sent her the footage.

Facebook hid the video from immediate view and posted the warning: “This video may show violence against a child or a teenager. We haven’t removed it from Facebook because it may help rescue the child in question.”

Before the video became public, a police report noted that a DCF investigator visited Wolf’s house and did not see any injuries to the younger child.

The investigator observed that both boys did not seem afraid of Wolf.