UPDATE: Woman Pleads Not Guilty To Abandoning Children In Madera, Calif.
MADERA, Calif. — Twenty-one-year-old Jessica Zarate pleaded not guilty to four charges of child abandonment and child endangerment in a Madera, California, courtroom Thursday, according to our affiliate KFSN in Fresno, California.
Zarate did not have an attorney, but a judge told her she was facing serious charges, so she will have a public defender assigned to her.
Her bond was set at $13,000.
Police in Madera said Zarate abandoned her three-year-old son in a park wherea woman found him scrounging through a trash can.
Donna Martinez, a woman who lives in El Paso, told ABC-7 that she is Zarate’s mother and is seeking custody of the two children Zarate allegedly abandoned.
