Debbie Piscitella was arrested earlier this week in St. Petersburg, Florida, for physically assaulting a 14-year-old boy she claims had been harassing her daughter on Facebook.

Piscitella and her husband Jim were looking through photos on their daughter's Facebook page, when they came across comments allegedly left by the boy and his girlfriend. "They wrote disgusting things about me over Facebook saying I'm so fat and disgusting that he wouldn't even rape me," the 13-year-old told The Daily.

Shopping with her daughter for a dress at the Tyrone Square Mall, Piscitella spotted the boy and rushed toward him. "She was grabbing him and yelling ‘Don't ever talk to my daughter again'," said an eyewitness. The 46-year-old "aspiring nurse" held the boy by his neck and choked him for several seconds. The throttling reportedly left red marks on his neck.

"It was the perfect storm," Jim Piscitella told the Tampa Bay Times. "There was no cooling off period. It was just a stupid mistake." Not surprisingly, the boy's mom, former parenting and anger management instructor Keysha Tipton, agrees.

"By all means, if my son needs to apologize for what he said, he will be apologizing," she told the paper. "But regardless of how mad you get, you don't put your hands on anybody - especially a child."

Piscitella was booked on charges of child abuse and released on $5,000 bail. Her daughter, who believes the boy "deserved it," received a Facebook comment after the incident threatening retaliation.

[image via Bay News 9]