A Florida woman was arrested and accused of leaving her four minor children, including an infant, alone while she went on a 3-day cruise.
The suspect, Nathalie Belizaire, 29, of North Miami Beach, is accused of four counts of childneglect without great bodily harm.
According to North Miami Beach police, the father of one of Belizaire’s children, who is 2 months old, had seen a post on her WhatsApp story on Thursday “depicting what appeared to be a cruise ticket purchase.”
That day, he spoke to Belizaire, who told him she would be dropping the children off with their great-grandmother, police said.
But when he went to her apartment Saturday night, he saw the TV on through the blinds and heard the children talking inside, which led him to call 911, an arrest report states.
Both police and Miami-Dade Fire Rescue responded and forced entry into the residence.
There, “all four minor children were discovered inside … without adult supervision and were hiding together in the bathroom,” police said.
Body camera video showed officers gathering the children and leading them outside.
When authorities spoke to the kids’ great-grandmother, she said Belizaire had told her that “she would be dropping the children off because she was going out of town,” but never brought them over.
Belizaire’s brother also told police that around 8 p.m. Saturday, his sister texted him, “instructing him to check on her children.”
Police said their multiple attempts to contact Belizaire were unsuccessful.
An investigation revealed that Belizaire had purchased a three-day ticket to the Bahamas aboard the Carnival Conquest with a sail date of Sept. 25.
Belizaire “left all four minor children, including a two-month-old infant and a two-year-old child, inside the residence without adult supervision while the defendant traveled out of town aboard a Carnival Conquest cruise ship,” the arrest report states.
On Monday, authorities were waiting as Belizaire disembarked at PortMiami, where she was taken into custody by U.S. Customs and Border Protection and later released to North Miami Beach police.
Authorities said she declined to provide a statement and invoked her right to remain silent.
“Based on the totality of the circumstances and evidence obtained during the investigation, sufficient probable cause existed to establish that the defendant failed to provide the necessary care and supervision for the four minor children, thereby exposing them to a substantial risk of harm,” the arrest report reads.
Belizaire appeared Tuesday in bond court, where her bond was set at $10,000, and she was asked to stay away from the children.
“You cannot make this up. It says she went on a cruise and left her children home alone,” Judge Mindy Glazer said during the hearing. “These poor kids, four of them, were home alone for three days. … I’m just grateful nothing worse happened to these kids.”
Belizaire’s attorney said she denies the allegations.
“Of course she does,” Glazer replied. “One baby, the baby was born in July of this year. Who leaves a baby alone like that?”