Accused Teen's Troubled Past Revisited
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}This is a rush transcript from "On the Record ," April 21, 2008. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
GRETA VAN SUSTEREN, HOST: We've been breaking news for you about one of the suspects in that awful teen girl attack video. Sixteen girls plus two boys acting as lookouts are now charged as adults with felonies for this attack. Police say they lured their victim with the intent to beat her on video and post it online. Here is that disturbing video.
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VAN SUSTEREN: Seventeen-year-old Mercades Nichols is one of the suspects in the attack. But that is not the news tonight--this is the news. It's not Mercades first brush with the law. We have learned that on November 13, Mercades' ex-boyfriend, 16-year-old Jacob Johns, filed a restraining order against her for dating violence.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}In that petition, Mercades' ex-boyfriend said Mercades was violent towards him, and several other times threatened him. The petition specifically says Mercades' stabbed him with a pen.
Fourteen days later on November 27, a restraining order against Mercades was issued. And then in February, Mercades was arrested and charged with violating the restraining order and for aggravated stalking, allegedly for contacting her former boyfriend on Valentine's Day.
Mercades' mother Christina Garcia joins us live on the phone. Christina, it sounds like your daughter has been a bit of a handful.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Watch: Greta's interview with Christina Garcia
CHRISTINA GARCIA, MOTHER OF MERCADES NICHOLS: Yes.
VAN SUSTEREN: Take me back to this restraining order last fall and this boyfriend. What happened?
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}GARCIA: Well, first of all, Mercades and Jake had been dating for like a year, and he was very violent with her as well. And their relationship was not good. It was not a good relationship. They always fought.
I never supported the relationship, because Jacob was very violent with her. He has kicked her, pushed her, caused bruises on her legs. He kicked her in the stomach whenever(ph) she was two-and-a-half months pregnant and caused her to lose the baby.
Since the restraining order in November, he has violated it on numerous occasions himself. About two or three weeks before the beating, the beating at hand here--about two or three weeks before that, they both went to Busch Gardens together with two Busch Garden cards that my mom actually pays for with her bank account.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}VAN SUSTEREN: Why is this child of yours so out of control? I mean, she is in this relationship with this guy, and I don't know what his version of the events are, but I've heard your version. She got pregnant. And was he the father of the child that she miscarried?
GARCIA: Of course.
VAN SUSTEREN: Why is this child seemingly--she has major issues, to put it politely.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}GARCIA: I don't know that I agree with that.
VAN SUSTEREN: You think that it's perfectly OK at her age to be pregnant, miscarried, to be in a bruised fighting situation with a boyfriend, end up with a restraining order, and now she has got herself cooked up in this tape on the Internet.
This is not exactly a problem-free situation.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}GARCIA: No, absolutely not. But she is not the person that is beating this girl. She was there, and, like I said, the last time I spoke to you, I did feel that she should have called the police.
She is not the ringleader. Everybody is saying she is. And there is a lot of 17-year-old girls out there that get pregnant, and they're not put on the news and all their stuff aired out like this, OK? That's how I feel about it.
VAN SUSTEREN: There may be others, Christina, but the fact is with those statistics that she is going into her 18th year on, she doesn't have much of a chance. She got a lousy start. I mean, she has to deal with some very serious problems.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}GARCIA: That's real positive thinking, isn't it?
VAN SUSTEREN: I'm thinking reality.
GARCIA: I would hope that my daughter is not watching what you're saying about her.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}VAN SUSTEREN: I'm actually concerned about this child. Look, she is a young person.
GARCIA: Right. And as a young person, you think that she needs to hear that she doesn't have a real good start in life?
VAN SUSTEREN: If she has got criminal facing her, open criminal problems, I don't know who is going to agree that this is a good start.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}GARCIA: First of all, the restraining order was diversified, and it wasn't even brought into court. She was never adjudicated, or--I don't know the word. It did not go to court.
VAN SUSTEREN: But here is the problem, Christina, the more you get arrested, the more likely you end up in jail, because you stop getting probation.
She is 17 years old or 16 years old--I don't know what it is--and she needs to turn this around or she is going to have a very tough road ahead.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}GARCIA: Right, I agree.
VAN SUSTEREN: So does she realize that?
GARCIA: Yes. She got involved with the wrong friends, the wrong people, but--
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}VAN SUSTEREN: What are you going to do?
GARCIA: What do you mean?
VAN SUSTEREN: Well, you got to help her.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}GARCIA: Obviously I'm helping her.
VAN SUSTEREN: What can you do to help her?
GARCIA: Well, all of these children need evaluations through counselors for starters. They don't need to be thrown in jail for the rest of their life. They are not 20, 30, 40-year-old people.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}VAN SUSTEREN: Are you not freaked about what is going on with your daughter, that she has got a lot of trouble facing her?
GARCIA: I'm very upset that people are thinking that she needs to spend the rest of her life in jail.
VAN SUSTEREN: I would be enormously upset with that, too. But I would be very upset if she got violent charges lodged against her, and she is only 17 years old. She has already been pregnant and lost a child in a miscarriage, and she is getting accused of stabbing a boyfriend at 16 with a pen.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}GARCIA: And the person who had her, made her have the miscarriage, is on record to be the father of the baby that she miscarried.
VAN SUSTEREN: I am not defending his conduct at all, Christian. I am just saying that this is a very serious problem.
GARCIA: It is a very serious problem, but all the problems are not her.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}VAN SUSTEREN: Well, I just hope things get turned with her. She is still young enough where things can turn around, and I hope that does happen.
Christina, thank you for joining us, and good luck with her.
GARCIA: Yes.
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