LEBANON, Pa.– A Myerstown woman is facing charges after police say she left her 8-year-old son alone in a car while she went to work at a restaurant in Lebanon city on Sunday.
Mary Anne Garcia, 30, is charged with endangering the welfare of children, manufacture, delivery or possession with intent to distribute, intentional possession of a controlled substance by a person who is not registered and use/possession of drug paraphernalia.
Officers with Lebanon City police responded to the rear of Big Daddy’s Rib & Wings located along the 200 block of Cumberland Street on March 26 for a report of an unattended child, according to the criminal complaint. A caller reported to police that a child had been sitting in a vehicle for several hours, and at one point was playing outside in the snow.
Police found an 8-year-old boy sitting in the front passenger seat of Garcia’s vehicle. The child told police that his mother, Garcia, leaves him in her vehicle while she works at the restaurant. While speaking with the boy–officers noticed a strong smell of marijuana coming from the vehicle, court records state.
Police searched the vehicle and found ten ounces of marijuana and a digital scale in the vehicle’s glove box.
Garcia told police she wasn’t sure how long her child had been left alone in the vehicle, but she believed it may have been around an hour, according to the criminal complaint.
Garcia was arraigned Monday and taken to Lebanon County Correctional Facility in lieu of $50,000 bail.
A preliminary hearing is scheduled for April 4.
