Background: The apartment building on the 500 block of Northwest 7th Street in Miami, Florida, where children are alleged to have been neglected (Google Maps). Inset: Anni Gomez (Miami-Dade County Corrections & Rehabilitation).
A Florida mother is facing serious charges after allegedly abandoning her son at a stranger’s home, an incident that also revealed potential neglect of her other children, according to authorities.
Anni Gomez, 29, has been arrested on charges of child abuse and three counts of child neglect without great bodily harm, as per Miami-Dade County jail records. The situation came to light following events that unfolded on Saturday.
The incident began when Gomez contacted a woman via WhatsApp regarding the purchase of various tamales. Upon arriving at the woman’s residence and completing the transaction, Gomez inquired if the woman could care for her children, as noted in an arrest affidavit accessed by Law&Crime.
Despite the woman’s admission that she provided child care services, she responded to Gomez’s request by saying, “I don’t know you,” and suggested they discuss the matter further. However, Gomez asked if she could leave her 9-year-old son with the woman, to which she firmly replied, “no.”
Authorities report that Gomez disregarded the refusal. “The defendant opened the Uber door, removed [the son] from the vehicle, and as soon as [the son] started walking toward [the woman], the defendant re-entered the Uber and left the scene, abandoning the child,” the affidavit details.
It was at this point that the woman noticed the boy had facial injuries and questioned him about their origin. Initially, the child claimed he had fallen, but upon further prompting, he revealed that his mother “hits him frequently,” according to authorities.
“She hits me with her phone on the head and beats me daily,” the boy said, per the affidavit. “She sometimes scratches me with her nails,” he added, saying he didn’t want to leave where he was “because he was scared of the defendant.”
The woman called the police, and sometime later, Gomez contacted the woman, saying she was returning in an Uber to pick up her son. Officers would be waiting for her.
About 15 minutes later, Gomez was detained and brought into police custody. Within the next 40 minutes, officers went to the defendant’s home to find her other two children, but no one was there.
An officer then went to speak to the 9-year-old boy, who had been brought to a hospital for his injuries. According to the affidavit, the boy recalled that while at home, he fell on the floor, “at which point his mother began kicking him … causing a black eye.”
The child went on, saying “his mother continued to hit him in the head, causing him to bleed. He stated that she hits him on a daily basis and that he does not know the reason why,” police detailed, adding that the boy said he wanted his mom arrested for what she was doing to him.
The officer speaking with him noticed injuries including the black eye, a swollen right cheek, bruises on both of his cheeks, clotted blood above his right eyebrow, and scratches all over his body, including his head, per the court document. A child protection worker was called to evaluate the boy.
An officer found the two other children who had been “unsupervised for over several hours.” They were both boys, with one being 7 years old and the other just 3 months old. They had been brought to another woman’s home after the 7-year-old child called the woman from an iPad saying his mom had left him and the baby alone and had not returned.
The same boy recounted that his mom left him with the baby because she “needed to go to do some errands.” The other woman then picked them up and brought them to her house.
Gomez was read her Miranda rights — and after being faced with the allegations against her, she denied them all, authorities said. She was booked into the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center.
