Mother leaves 4-year-old daughter alone in car with fentanyl in Tempe, police say
TEMPE, AZ (3TV/CBS 5) — A woman was arrested after police say she left her daughter alone with drugs in the car on Tempe’s Mill Avenue Saturday while she looked for her cellphone. Court documents say 26-year-old Lupita Alvarez-Beltran’s car was parked just south of Fifth Street on Mill Avenue with the engine running and the 4-year-old girl inside alone. Two to three minutes after police showed up, Alvarez-Beltran returned to her car around 6:30 p.m.
When she went to get her ID in the car, police said they smelled a strong odor of burnt fentanyl coming from the car. Officers searched the car and found 18 pills with M-30 imprinted on them, court paperwork said. They also said they discovered pills inside Alvarez-Beltran’s purse, which was on the front passenger’s seat where the girl was sitting. The woman’s daughter didn’t have a seatbelt on.
Court paperwork said Alvarez-Beltran told police she was arrested at Varsity Tavern bar earlier in the morning and was looking for her cell phone. She reportedly told officers she knew drugs and drug paraphernalia were in the car because her brother smoked inside the car. Alvarez-Beltran was booked into jail on one count of child abuse, a class 2 felony.
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