MIAMI BEACH, Fla. – The Florida Department of Children and Families intervened after police officers found a Slovakian girl alone in South Beach and arrested her mother, who was allegedly on vacation with a boyfriend, records show.
The 42-year-old woman said she and her 6-year-old daughter are from Martin, a European city in northern Slovakia, and were scheduled to return home on Jan. 14, according to the Miami Beach Police Department.
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Police officers reported finding the girl “shivering from being cold due to her clothes being wet” at about 2:40 p.m., on Friday, at the South Bay Club, on West Avenue and Eighth Street.
The building manager reported that a worker was worried about the girl’s safety after finding her alone in the pool, which faces Biscayne Bay, according to police.
Since the girl only spoke Slovak, police officers requested an interpreter, and questioned her and her mother, Michaela Novakova, who returned at about 5:50 p.m., according to police.
Police officers arrested Novakova at about 6:40 p.m., after determining that she had abandoned her daughter that afternoon without “adequate food, shelter, supervision, or medical care,” according to the arrest report.
Miami-Dade County correctional officers booked Novakova shortly after midnight on Saturday at the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center, and she appeared in court on Monday while facing a charge of child neglect with no great bodily harm, records show.
Police officers reported the girl’s father was in Slovakia, and since she didn’t have any family in Miami-Dade County, they notified DCF and detectives with the special victims unit.
Detectives were asking anyone with information about the case to call Miami-Dade County Crime Stoppers at 305-471-8477.
Local 10 News Assignment Desk Editor Frine Gomez contributed to this report.