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Tara Bradbury had entered the Bergen County Jail on Feb. 5 and remained held there voluntarily, instead of prison, as part of an intensively supervised drug court program.
Although the baby wasn’t due for several weeks, sources with direct knowledge of the matter said that Bradbury was admitted to HUMC on Friday in high-risk labor in the custody of two Bergen County Sheriff’s officers.
Mark Tomat in court today (STORY / PHOTO: CLIFFVIEW PILOT Courthouse Reporter Mary K. Miraglia), Tara Bradbury (MUGSHOT: Courtesy BERGEN COUNTY SHERIFF)
A short time before she was admitted, Bradbury’s boyfriend pleaded guilty to child endangerment in a Hackensack courtroom, telling a judge that he’d left the heroin that her first son ingested lying around.
In exchange for his plea, Mark Tomat will be sentenced to probation.
Tomat said that he and Bradbury bought the heroin, took it home to her apartment and used it on Valentine’s Day 2014.
After discovering an hour or so after leaving the apartment that the baby swallowed the drug because of their negligence, Tomat said he returned and gave a statement to police.
The boy, who is Bradbury’s from a prior relationship, was unresponsive when he was brought to The Valley Hospital with small bruises on his forehead after Wyckoff police got a 911 call.
Medical staff told investigators that the boy “responded favorably” after they gave him Narcan, authorities said at the time.
He was later transferred to New York-Presbyterian Hospital with swelling of the brain and eventually recovered, they said. He has since been in the care of relatives.
Although the couple at first denied knowledge of what happened, according to Bergen County Prosecutor John L. Molinelli, detectives found deleted messages on Bradbury’s and Tomat’s cellphones “indicating they were both aware the child had ingested narcotics and their intention to deny any knowledge of that.”
Bradbury later pleaded guilty to child endangerment while agreeing to a drug court judge’s terms of intensively-supervised probation.
These include an individualized drug and alcohol rehabilitation regimen tailored specifically to her needs — which is modified, as needed, as she proceeds through treatment.
Although the specifics of any single rehabilitation plan are confidential, all are “appropriate to an individual’s current condition,” court officials said.
Defense attorney Joseph Rem acknowledged that incarceration during a pregnancy is “not an uncommon” requirement.
“They will do everything they can do to rehabilitate her,” he said.
Superior Court Judge Edward A. Jerejian on Friday set an April 24 sentencing for Tomat.
STORY, TOMAT PHOTO: CLIFFVIEW PILOT Courthouse Reporter Mary K. Miraglia / MUGSHOT: Courtesy BERGEN COUNTY SHERIFF
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