FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – A 25-year-old woman was arrested Monday after she left her 4-year-old child in a locked car while she attended a job fair, Miramar police said.
Amber Collier faces one count of child neglect without great bodily harm.
A prosecutor asked Broward County Judge Jackie Powell in court Tuesday that Collier's bond be set at $5,000 after she allegedly left the child alone in the car for more than an hour.
"She left the 4-year-old a cellphone to contact the police if there was an emergency," he said, explaining what Collier told police, as outlined in the arrest report.
Collier's public defender said she is a single mother who goes to college part-time, paid for through financial aid.
"Financially, right now, she's going through a tough time and she wants to work," he said.
The public defender pleaded for Powell to consider a lesser bond.
"What happened, basically, she went for a job interview and the allegation is she left her child in her vehicle," he told Powell. "But the vehicle was on with the air-conditioning on."
However, the prosecutor pointed out the length of time that the child was left alone.
"My concern is not that the child would have overheated," he said. "My concern is, in that period, over an hour, anybody could have gone to that car and taken that child."
Powell set Collier's bond at $2,500 and ordered that she not have contact with her child pending the outcome of a family court hearing.