Mother Enters Guilty Plea After Abandonment of Baby in Tustin
Lajuna Shanetta Hayes, who abandoned her 2-day-old son outside a Tustin apartment complex last week, has pleaded guilty to felony child abandonment.
Sentencing for Hayes, 18, was scheduled for May 16 in Orange County Superior Court.
The infant, Frank Hayes, is at Childrens Hospital of Orange County awaiting bed space at Orangewood, the county facility for neglected and abused children.
The baby was found April 3 in a paper bag outside the Walnut East Apartments. Police said a handwritten note attached to the bag read: “Whoever finds this take care of this baby please!”
After a door-to-door search of the complex, Tustin police arrested the baby’s mother, who they said had arrived recently from Florida.
Until Wednesday, Hayes had been held in Orange County Jail on $10,000 bail. After pleading guilty in Municipal Court on Wednesday, she was released on her own recognizance. Hayes faces a maximum sentence of one year in jail.
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