Deputies: Not the 1st time this has happened
Sharon Rosenberg is shown here in her jail mug after her arrest Friday on a charge of leaving a small child alone in a locked car.
ORMOND BEACH -- Volusia County Sheriff's deputies arrested a 63-year-old woman on Friday with child neglect after she left a 2-year-old girl alone in her car while she went shopping for groceries. And witnesses told deputies this wasn't the first time.
Deputies were dispatched to the parking lot of Love Whole Foods Café & Market on Williamson Boulevard near Ormond Beach at 4:22 p.m. Friday after the store called to report that a shopper had left a little girl unattended in their car.
"According to store employees, the woman had been in the store for about 30-45 minutes," Sheriff's spokesman Gary Davidson said. "And they told deputies that they had confronted the woman on a previous occasion for doing the same thing, but that she left that time before they could contact authorities."
Deputies located Sharon Rosenberg and brought her to the parking lot, where a 2-year-old child in her care was asleep in a car seat inside the vehicle. Deputies noted that while the car was locked, one window was open slightly and the interior of the vehicle was muggy with little or no circulation. The child was sweating, but otherwise unharmed.
Rosenberg told deputies she left the child in the car because the girl was asleep and she didn't expect to be in the store long. She also denied that she had done this before, saying the store employees must have her confused with someone else.
Deputies arrested Rosenberg on a felony count of child neglect and transported her to the Volusia County Branch Jail in Daytona Beach. The child's mother was called to pick up the girl. Rosenberg, of Port Orange, was released after posting $2,500 bond.