Mom indicted for hiring stripper for son\'s birthday
East Nashville woman says 16-year-old is \'very mature\'
By IAN DEMSKY
Staff Writer
An east Nashville mother said yesterday there was nothing wrong with hiring a stripper to dance at her 16-year-old son\'s birthday party.
A Davidson County grand jury felt differently, indicting her and four others on charges of contributing to the delinquency of a minor and involving a minor in obscene acts.
"It\'s a bunch of bull," Anette Pharris, 34, said yesterday afternoon in an interview at her east Nashville home. "I tried to do something special for my son. It didn\'t harm him."
From the family\'s front porch, which sits on a small street off Dickerson Pike near Hart Lane, her children have witnessed prostitutes with customers, people injecting drugs, smoking crack and doing other misdeeds. A naked woman was nothing to get upset about, Pharris said.
"Age is just a number," she said. "My son is very mature."
Metro police officials don\'t agree that hiring a stripper for a minor\'s birthday party is just harmless fun.
"We don\'t think the Nashville community is ready to allow adult entertainment in the form of a **** dancer around teenagers at a birthday party," said police spokesman Don Aaron. He noted that minors who were not related to the family had attended the party.
"Minors are not permitted in adult establishments in Nashville or anywhere in this state," Aaron said. "A person shouldn\'t be allowed to circumvent that law by hiring a stripper, a lady who took all her clothes off and spent a good amount of time dancing around minors."
About 30 people were at Landon Pharris\' 16th birthday party in September, about 10 of them under the age of 18.
We even had grandpa there," his mother said.
Landon\'s mother said she had to contact several companies before she found one that would agree to send an adult entertainer to a minor\'s birthday party.
Cassandra Joyce Park, 29, who police say used the stage name "Sassy," danced for a few hours before "the guys" took up a collection and paid her $150 more to fully disrobe, Landon\'s mother said.
Park and her escort to the party, Jeffrey Scott Harper, 35, were also charged, along with the owner of the entertainment business, Kirk Anthony Yates, 37, police said. Harper declined to comment through a friend; Park and Yates could not be reached.
The birthday boy\'s father, who\'s also named Landon Pharris, was also charged.
The excitement might have ended that night if Anette Pharris hadn\'t taken photos at the celebration and then tried to have them developed at a nearby drug store. Many of the pictures were taken by Anette Pharris, police said, but once the dancer\'s "bottoms" came off, she retreated into the next room and her then 14-year-old son, Brandon, continued documenting the action.
Everyone who was indicted knew that the stripper was being hired to dance in the presence of minors, police officials said.
Anette Pharris said yesterday that she was coming up on her 18th wedding anniversary, "so I must be doing something right. Who are they to tell me what I can and can\'t show to my own children?"
"Let he who is without sin cast the first stone," she said.
Cassandra Joyce Park, 29, left, who police say used the stage name "Sassy," danced at the 16th birthday party for Landon Harris, right, in September.
2 ugliest people on earth. confirmed. :yack:
wait...
the left one is the dude right?
"It\'s a bunch of bull,"
hahahah
that
**** is ugly man I would be pissed if that beat up ho was my birthday present
Look at that dude\'s face and expression,he loving it, priceless. now, look at his mop, then look at it as a whole picture. interesting...
god that chic is really scaring me