Inset: Maribel Plaza (Lake County Sheriff's Office). Background: Lake County Detention Center in Tavares, Fla. (Google Maps).
A Florida woman who allegedly left a child she was babysitting to go to her boyfriend's house faces charges after the child reportedly ingested drugs while she was gone.
Maribel Plaza, 29, is out on bond after being booked into the Lake County Jail on a charge of child neglect. According to an arrest affidavit reviewed by Law&Crime, officers from the Leesburg Police Department responded to a call from the medical staff at UF Health Hospital in Leesburg, Florida, around 1:30 a.m. on June 19 about a child who was brought to the hospital by a neighbor.
The neighbor told police that the child knocked on their door around 1 a.m. "begging" to be taken to the hospital after falling off a bed. Police said the neighbor told them that there was no adult at the home with the child.
According to the affidavit, the neighbor said the child was "weak, sick, and lethargic" upon their initial encounter. While at the hospital, the child tested positive for THC, the active ingredient in marijuana.
Police said the child slept most of the time, but officers were able to contact the child's family. A family member confirmed to police over a video call that Plaza was the sole adult put in charge of the child while they went out of state to Georgia for several days. When the child was awake, they told police that Plaza had left them alone around 10 p.m. the night before. No other adults ever came to the house to watch the child.
The affidavit said police tracked Plaza down and contacted her by phone. Plaza told police that she left the child alone believing that the family was returning later that night. She eventually admitted that she left the child at their family's home so she could spend the night at her boyfriend's house.
When police asked about how the child could have THC in their system, Plaza said she had put a bottle of CBD oil in the bathroom medicine cabinet and THC gummies in the freezer. Both places were accessible to the child, and Plaza denied giving any substances to the child. She told police that the child "should not know what they are." The child was unable to tell police what substances they had consumed.
Plaza was arrested on June 19 and posted $5,000 bond later that day. She is due in court on July 13.
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