A Florida judge looked at a mother accused of cruising to the Bahamas while four young children were left in her apartment and point blank asked question driving the case.
“Who leaves four little kids alone?” Judge Mindy Glazer asked in court Tuesday.
Nathalie Belizaire, 29, wiped tears with the sleeve of her orange jail jumpsuit as Glazer went over allegations that the children were discovered without an adult at a North Miami Beach apartment while Belizaire was away on the Carnival Conquest.
“We are just grateful nothing happened to these kids,” Glazer noted.
When Belizaire’s attorney noted that the case was still an allegation, Glazer focused on where police say the trip ended.
Police “arrested her disembarking from the cruise ship,” Glazer pointed out.
Officers with the North Miami Beach Police Department were waiting for Belizaire Monday as she came off the Carnival Conquest, after a Bahamas trip that allegedly began Friday.
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The case reached police after the father of Belizaire’s 2-month-old saw cruise posts on social media and asked where the children were, police said. Belizaire allegedly answered that all four youngsters were with their great-grandmother.
By Saturday night, the father was outside Belizaire’s apartment, where the arrest report says he heard children talking and noticed a television running inside. Belizaire was not there.
Emergency crews entered the apartment and recovered “all four minor children inside without adult supervision,” according to the report.
Police reported that the siblings were “hiding together in the bathroom.”
Officials have not publicly listed every child’s age, but the group included a 2-month-old baby and a 2-year-old.
Belizaire’s attorney told NBC6 that the mother denied the accusations and challenged the idea that she would leave a newborn behind.
“Of course she (denies the allegations)…. One baby, the baby was born in July of this year. Who leaves a baby alone like that?” the attorney said.
Police said the children’s great-grandmother had been expected to care for them, but investigators were told Belizaire never brought the children to her before the cruise.
Belizaire also allegedly sent her brother a message over the weekend asking him to look in on the children.
After Belizaire came off the ship, U.S. Customs and Border Protection detained her before she was transferred to local police.
She was held at the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center in Miami on four counts of child neglect without great bodily harm.
Belizaire did not give investigators a statement and invoked her right to remain silent during her first court appearance, where a judge set bond at $10,000.
The Florida cruise case was followed by another child-abandonment allegation in Texas involving a baby, a bus stop and a stranger who said she suddenly found herself holding someone else’s infant.
Karla Ibarra, 18, was accused of handing her 1-month-old son to Jennifer Benavides after approaching her on Sept. 13 and first asking to use her phone.
Benavides told KSAT she had been admiring the baby when Ibarra allegedly offered to give him away.
“Well, do you want him? I’m going to give him away. I’m going to give him to somebody,” Benavides recalled Ibarra saying.
Benavides said the offer no longer felt like a misunderstanding once Ibarra allegedly turned over the child, his birth certificate, Medicaid card and Social Security card.
She tried to help Ibarra by bringing her to a nearby friend’s home, but Ibarra allegedly left the baby there with Benavides and the friend before getting into an Uber.
Police were called, and Ibarra was arrested after returning later that evening.
Ibarra was later booked into the Bexar County Jail on a $7,000 bond after being charged with abandoning and endangering a child with intent to return, according to court records.
Child Protective Services told KSAT the baby was later placed with relatives.
Benavides said she was glad Ibarra came to her, even though she first worried the 18-year-old might try to turn the story against her.
She also called the alleged handoff “upsetting,” pointing to “all the resources that we have out there.”
Texas’ Safe Haven Law has existed since 1999 and allows parents to legally and anonymously leave an unharmed newborn at a designated safe location without legal repercussions.
In New York, a newborn was discovered in August inside a women’s restroom at a ShopRite in White Plains, where police said the baby’s mother was employed.
Officers located the infant at the ShopRite inside the City Center shopping complex on a Sunday and began lifesaving care, according to a police press release.
The baby was brought to a local hospital in stable condition and placed with Westchester County Child Protective Services.
News 12 identified the mother as a 32-year-old White Plains resident who worked at the store.
The woman remained in custody as police continued the investigation with the Westchester County District Attorney’s Office Special Prosecution Unit.
