Tonya Moss

NORMAN, Okla. – A single mother from a small Oklahoma town has been sentenced to 21 years in prison for allowing her teenage son to host an unchaperoned party where a 15-year-old friend drank himself to death.

“The defendant wanted to be a cool mom,” said prosecutor Lori Puckett. “She didn’t want to say no to her son.”

District Judge Tracy Schumacher, who imposed the sentence last week, said the “selfish and irresponsible behavior” of the mother, Tonya Lynne Moss, 33, warranted the harsh punishment. The judge said Moss’ conduct defied the community standard for responsible parents.

Moss had pleaded no contest to charges of providing alcohol to a minor, child neglect and illegal possession of a firearm, leaving her fate up to the judge rather than a jury.

Nicholas Faught, a friend of Moss’ son, died of alcohol poisoning March 28, 2015, while attending the unchaperoned bonfire party at the Moss home in Lexington, a small town 35 miles south of Oklahoma City.

Moss was not present at the party, but returned home early the next morning with her boyfriend when it was breaking up, finding the victim unconscious.

She said she tried to resuscitate him for several minutes, then fled with the boyfriend, leaving a group of teenagers to explain the situation to authorities.

Moss was on probation at the time and prohibited from drinking.  She said she was “scared and panicked and I didn’t know what to do.”

Her attorney, Tim Kuykendall, argued that while she made a terrible mistake in fleeing the scene, she did not know her son planned to invite so many friends to the bonfire party, and that she did not directly cause the victim’s death.

Minors drinking when their parents are not home “happens every day, in every city and every community,” said Kuykendall.

The victim’s mother, Heather Lawson, said in court that Moss made “a decision that night on behalf of my son that you had no right to make. I wonder if he could have been saved if you hadn’t walked off.”

Lawson said as severe as the sentence appeared, it fit the circumstances that resulted in the death of her son.

Details for this story were provided by the Norman, Okla., Transcript.