An Odessa man was arrested Monday on a warrant that was issued after police said he left his 3-year-old son home alone back in November.
According to an Odessa Police Department report, a resident of the Legado Ranch Apartments on De Morada Drive called police Nov. 13 after finding the boy, clad only in a diaper, alone and wandering around a third-story breezeway when the temperature was 48 degrees.
The resident recognized the child as his next door neighbor and when officers checked inside the apartment, they found it empty. According to the report, they also noticed the electric stove was on and the coils were bright red.
When the child’s mother was contacted she said she was at the gym and she’d left the boy with his father, the report stated. The officers confirmed she was, indeed, at the gym.
When they contacted the boy’s father, Martin Adolfo Diarte, 24, he confirmed he had “care and custody” of the boy, but had left him alone to go to work.
A warrant for abandoning/endangering a child was issued and Diarte was arrested on that warrant Monday. The crime is a state jail felony punishable by six months to two years in prison.
Diarte was released from the Ector County jail Tuesday after posting a $4,000 surety bond.
