WEST ENDICOTT, NY -- Authorities have charged an upstate New York woman with leaving her 12-year-old niece alone for more than two weeks in their squalid apartment after the aunt took a job in another city.
The Broome County Sheriff's Office tells Binghamton media outlets that 40-year-old Lorraine Kelsh was charged Tuesday with abandoning a child and endangering the welfare of a child.
The arrest came after deputies responded to a report of a girl living alone in an apartment outside Binghamton.
Neighbors who fed the girl say they didn't know she was left alone. The girl is in the care of county Child Protective Services.
Authorities say the girl's mother lives in Florida and her father is in Puerto Rico.
Kelsh was being held in jail without bail. It wasn't known if she had a lawyer.
