Pregnant Mindy McCready Willing To Risk Jail To "Protect" Son

Country crooner Mindy McCready made headlines on Wednesday (November 30) when she and her 5-year-old son, Zander, disappeared from her father's Cape Coral, Florida home. A judge has since ordered the troubled star to return the child to her parents, who serve as his legal guardians, but according to Mindy, her recently revealed pregnancy prevents her from bringing Zander back to Florida by the court's deadline, and doing so would also put the boy in danger.

"I'm a mom first," McCready tells the Associated Press from Nashville. "No matter what happens, I'm going to protect my kid. If I have to go to jail, so be it."

So why is little Zander in need of protection?

In her interview with the AP, Mindy claims that her mother, Gayle Inge, has been abusive to Zander, which Inge denies.

It is not yet clear whether or not the singer will actually face criminal charges for her actions, but it's now being reported that the judge has signed an order to have law enforcement officials bring Zander to Florida.

"Mom has violated the court's custody order and we are simply restoring the child back into our custody," the judge writes. "Nothing more. Nothing less. The court makes no judgement about whether Mom will or will not competently care for the child while in her custody. It only wants the child back where the court placed him."

Zander's father, Billy McKnight, tells Today that he spoke with Mindy and their son on Friday (December 2), after the judge's deadline had expired, and that the boy sounded "healthy and ok."

"He wasn't crying or scared," says McKnight, who feels that McCready is "pushing her luck on this one."

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Mindy is currently almost seven months pregnant with twins. According to The New York Daily News, the father of the babies is her boyfriend of two years, music producer David Wilson.