Mother of East Orange teen, who was missing for weeks, charged with child endangerment
Police have charged the mother of a 14-year-old East Orange girl who had been missing for nearly a month until she was found safe with child endangerment.
Essex County officials held a press conference Friday morning where they said the girl had run away and was evading being found while her community and multiple agencies searched for her across the North Jersey area for weeks.
At the time of the press conference, officials said the matter would remain under investigation before they could say what led the teen to leave home. But hours later, the Essex County Prosecutor's Office charged the girl's mother, Jaime Moore, with child endangerment and removed the girl and her brother from the mother's custody.
The charges stem from allegations of physical abuse and neglect, prosecutors said, but did not go into detail.
The daughter went missing at 10 a.m. on Oct. 14, when she went to a deli on Central Avenue in East Orange, near her home, to get some groceries. When she returned empty-handed, she told her mother that she had lost her debit card, according to WPIX.
Moore told her daughter to retrace her steps, but she never returned.
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Since then, East Orange police teamed with officers from Orange, Elizabeth, the Essex County sheriff's and prosecutor's offices and New Jersey State Police, as well as the FBI, which took an interest in the case since it received national coverage.
Some in the community pleaded for the same widespread attention given to recently disappeared 22-year-old Gabby Petito, who was found dead of strangulation in September.
Jaime Moore criticized law enforcement's handling of her daughter's case as a missing person and continually insisted she was taken and did not disappear on her own, WPIX reported.
Acting Essex County Prosecutor Theodore Stephens said the girl had been staying in multiple locations in New Jersey and elsewhere while she was missing.
“Obviously, this was an extremely resilient and resourceful young woman,” Stephens said of her ability to survive on her own for several weeks without any known source of money.
Eventually, a man, who officials described as familiar with the 14-year-old girl's case, recognized her while she was living in a shelter in Brooklyn, Stephens said Friday morning.
The man approached the girl, who had changed her appearance since leaving home weeks before, and asked if she was the missing girl, Stephens said, which she first denied before relenting and meeting with NYPD officers in Harlem.
East Orange Mayor Ted Green appealed to troubled youths in his city, urging them to come forward and seek help.
“If you need something or someone to cry out to for help, we are here for you,” he said.
This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: East Orange NJ: Mother of teen who was missing has been charged
