An Oregon man who served drugged fruit smoothies to his daughter and her friends during a sleepover has been sentenced to two years in prison.
Michael Meyden, 57, apologized in court Monday after pleading guilty to three felony counts of causing another person to ingest a controlled substance.
"My whole life is destroyed. Everything that was important to me up until that point is gone," he said, per The Oregonian.
During the course of his trial, Meyden admitted to slipping a sleep medication into the smoothies because his daughter and her friends hadn't fallen asleep by 11 p.m. -- and he wanted them to go to bed so he could get some sleep.
According to court documents, Meyden repeatedly went down to the basement to watch the girls sleep, at various points putting his finger under a girl's nose and waving his hand in front of her face to assure himself she was sleeping.
Meyden was busted when one of the girls, who didn't drink her smoothie, became suspicious and called a family friend after the others had passed out. She told police she pretended to be asleep as Meyden moved her arm and then moved one of the other girl's body.
The girl texted her mom just before 2 a.m. saying, "Mom please pick me up and say I had a family emergency. I don't feel safe. I might not respond but please come get me. Please. Please pick up. Please. Please!!"
When she couldn't rouse her parents, she managed to contact a family friend who picked her up and brought her home. Her parents then contacted the other parents, who went to Meyden's house to get their daughters.
Meyden allegedly did not want to let the parents into his home, saying their daughters were asleep, but eventually relented and allowed the girls to be taken home.
All three girls tested positive for benzodiazepine, which is prescribed to treat panic attacks and insomnia.
During Monday's hearing, one of the mothers said the amount of the drug in her daughter's system was "off the charts."
"You played Russian roulette with my child’s life," she told Meyden, per The Oregonian. "She is barely 5 feet tall and on a good day 70 pounds soaking wet and you overdosed her."
Another mother also questioned Meyden's explanation that he just wanted to the girls to go to sleep.
"No decent parent feels the need to drug their own child and her friends," she told the court, according to The Oregonian. "No decent parent feels the need to go down and confirm children are unconscious. No decent parent puts their hands on drugged and unconscious young girls without nefarious intent."