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Now she’s in the county jail on $50,000 and the boy’s grandmother is caring for him.
Witnesses who saw the child outside the Dairy Queen on River Road called police just before 8 p.m., then brought the boy inside the Golden China Restaurant.
Lt. Kevin Kiene and Officer Michael Lafrano and Lt. Kevin Kiene found 26-year-old Ashley Scola of Hawthorne pushing the stroller out of the restaurant with her 18-year-old boyfriend and a 17-year-old boy, Police Chief Frank Papapietro told CLIFFVIEW PILOT this afternoon.
They “immediately smelled alcohol on her breath,” the chief said. “Her speech was slurred, and she stumbled a few times trying to support herself on the building and the stroller.”
Scola and son
The two men took off, leaving Scola to explain to the officers that she’d had a single bottle of rum that night.
“She became agitated,” Papapietro said, adding that the officers took her purse from inside the stroller and found a bottle of vodka inside.
Under the stroller were three empties — a 25-ounce and two 16-ounce beer cans — the chief said.
She’s due in court next Wednesday to face child endangerment charges.
Detective Kevin Van Saders contacted the state Division of Child Protection and Permanency and the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office Special Victims Unit, both of which assisted, Papapietro said.
Neither the boyfriend, who lives in New Milford, nor the juvenile were charged, he said.
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