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Did Bad Medicine Make Family Strip Naked?

By Deanne Katz, Esq. on October 08, 2012 | Last updated on March 21, 2019

Sara Butler and her children stripped naked in the parking lot of a high school outside Philadelphia. But Butler is blaming some bad medicine interactions for the incident.

Butler is on medication for Lupus and the combination of her treatments allegedly led her to think the world was ending. With that news she decided to gather all her children around her  -- which is an understandable impulse for any mother.

Then all of them took off their clothes and started chanting in the parking lot. That's when police got involved.

Butler and three of her children went to pick up another child at the Upper Darby High School back in March. But when they arrived the school wouldn't release the child to Butler because she wasn't the custodial parent.

Unfazed by this information, Butler and her family disrobed in the parking lot and started chanting, reports Fox News. On Monday, she and her adult daughters pled guilty to indecent exposure.

By way of excuse, Butler claimed that her medication induced the psychotic episode that led to the public nudity. That may have been part of the reason for her relatively lenient sentence.

Butler and her two daughters were placed on probation following the hearing.

Indecent exposure can be a serious crime especially depending on where it takes place. When it takes place in front of a school often the stakes are higher since minors are involved.

In some cases it can be considered a sex offense if there is some sexual element to it, either that it's gratifying to the perpetrator or that it's an overtly sexual act.

That doesn't seem to be the case here given the family aspect and the fact that the naked relatives chanted religious phrases, according to Fox News.

Presumably Butler has sorted out her medications to avoid this issue in the future. That excuse may be convincing the first time but there's no telling whether the judge would be as compassionate the second time around.

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