Defense lawyer is charged with child neglect after toddler son is found alone in courthouse
A Florida criminal defense lawyer was charged with child neglect for allegedly leaving her toddler son alone in an Osceola County courthouse break room on Thursday.
Authorities said Alicia Warner, 33, initially told deputies the two-year-old boy was alone only about seven minutes, after the two were separated when elevator doors closed between them, reports the Orlando Sentinel. She also said she had been checking on him periodically.
However, a review of security camera footage showed mother and son entering an attorney break room on the fifth floor at about 8:25 a.m. She apparently left him briefly as she went into another court room, and then returned. She left again at 8:45 a.m., the Sentinel reports.
Shortly after 9 a.m., another lawyer found the boy crying and asking for his mother, trying to get into the break room. Warner went looking for her son at around 9:30 a.m., and met with deputies who had taken her son to a client intake area on the third floor, the newspaper reports.
Warner was charged with child neglect and posted $1,000 bond. The boy was released to his dad.
Admitted in Florida in 2011, she works for the Office of Criminal Conflict and Civil Regional Counsel, which handles overflow cases in which the public defender has been conflicted out. The office did not return a call from the Sentinel seeking comment.
An email to Warner did not elicit a response, the Associated Press reports.
Updated at 4:20 p.m. to elaborate on the timeline.
