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Woman leaves goddaughter, dogs in car while she goes to court
Joheidi Martinez / Photo from Cook County Sheriff's police
Updated: July 31, 2012 6:39PM
A Northwest Side woman was arrested after leaving a young child and two dogs inside a car outside the Skokie Courthouse while she attended a hearing Tuesday.
Joheidi Martinez, 30, of the 4500 block of North Lawndale Avenue, was charged with endangerment of a child and animal abandonment, according to the Cook County Sheriff’s office.
A witness outside told a sheriff’s deputy about 10:35 a.m. that a small child and two dogs were inside a gold car in the parking lot of the Skokie Courthouse at 5600 Old Orchard Rd. for more than an hour, a release from the sheriff’s office said.
The 8-year-old child told a deputy she was waiting for her godmother, police said.
Neither the child nor the dogs were injured, and they were turned over to the child’s mother after the state Department of Children and Family Services investigated the incident.
Martinez told deputies she “didn’t realize how long” she was gone or “how hot it was outside,” the release said.
She posted 10 percent of a $6,000 bond and is next scheduled to appear in court Aug. 8 in Skokie.
Martinez has previously been arrested for retail theft in 2001, driving on a suspended license in 2003, resisting/obstructing a peace officer in 2003, resisting/obstructing a peace officer in 2007, battery causing bodily harm in 2012 and aggravated battery to a peace officer in May 2012, sheriff’s police said.
Temperatures and heat indexes were in the low 80s around the area Tuesday morning.
