By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Sunday, March 3, 1991
The Record (New Jersey) | All Editions | NEWS | Page A03
A Bronx man whose 16-month-old son was found alone and crying in a van at a shopping mall last week says he did not intend to leave the infant there but police arrived before he could take the child with him.
“Right when I dropped my tools off and I came back to get my kid, the cops were already there,” Godwin Chow said Saturday at the Bergen County Jail Annex, where he was being held on $75,000 bail.
Chow, 39, said that when he saw city police Sgt. Frank Lomia and Officer John Carroll next to his van at Riverside Square mall, he panicked, and decided to wait until they left before bringing the boy into the restaurant where he was to repair equipment Wednesday night.
But police and mall security officers said the infant, David Chow, had been in the van in front of Au Bon Pain restaurant at the mall for at least two hours when Lomia and Carroll found him about 9:50 p.m.
Mall security officers, dispatched to look for the van’s owner in nearby businesses because the boy was crying, returned with Chow as Lomia and Carroll were about to smash the window to get to the child, police said.
When he took the boy out of the van, Lomia said, the child appeared to be in good health but was cold, his clothing was in poor condition, and his diaper had not been changed in some time.
Chow was charged with endangering the life of a child and disorderly conduct.
A spokeswoman for Hackensack Medical Center said Saturday that the infant, who did not require treatment, had been released Friday night to the custody of the New York City Child Welfare Administration. An attorney for the agency said he could not comment on any case it might be involved in.
Chow said he usually had a baby sitter look after his son when he went to work but did not do so Wednesday because he was going to be with the infant and did not plan on working long. In the past when he went to work at the restaurant, Chow said, he brought the boy in with him.
Ray and Raphie Gutierrez, brothers who are managers at the restaurant, said Chow often brought a baby in when he came to repair stoves.
“I really cannot tell you how many times he brought the baby to work here, but I remember I’ve seen the kid a couple of times,” Ray Gutierrez said.
Gutierrez said Chow arrived at the restaurant about 9 p.m. Wednesday to repair the steamer on an oven.
“I don’t know what was going on outside,” Gutierrez said. “The only thing I know is that every five minutes he was going outside.”
Chow said he had known the child’s mother only briefly, and did not learn she was pregnant until she came to him seven months after they met while experiencing complications with her pregnancy. He said he took her to a hospital, where she gave birth, and then she abandoned the child.
Chow said he had not seen a lawyer since his arrest.
“The jail is overcrowded. Right now, I’m sleeping on a cold plastic mat. There is no pillowcase, no towel, no nothing. The only thing I have is this,” Chow said, tugging contemptuously at the collar of his jail uniform.
The officers involved in the arrest and Police Chief William C. Iurato could be reached Saturday for further comment on the case.
Keywords: HACKENSACK; NEW YORK CITY; CHILD; MOTOR VEHICLE; STORE
ID: 17334826 | Copyright © 1991, The Record (New Jersey)
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