Dad Who Left Kids In Truck In Seminole Casino Parking Garage Charged
HOLLYWOOD (CBSMiami) – A Kendall man is charged with leaving his two small children alone in his truck for an hour at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino on Sunday.
On Monday, as 47-year-old Anthony Keith Wells came before a judge in bond court, Wells received a lecture.
Broward Judge John Hurley told Wells he used "poor judgement" when he left his three-month old and one-and-a-half year-old children alone in his truck.
According to a spokesman for the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino, a hotel security guard discovered the children alone inside Wells's truck on the 8th floor of a casino garage.
The spokesman said the infant was crying and the older child was "watching video" in the truck. He said the security guard said the truck was unlocked and a window was cracked. But this could have been deadly. The guard said the children were alone in the truck for an hour.
He said the father came back to his truck just after 5 p.m. on Sunday with food. It was not clear where Wells had been and if he had been gambling.
Judge Hurley told Wells he was charged with two counts of child neglect without great harm. Bond was set at $2,000.
The children were not hurt. A spokeswoman for the Department of Children and Families said DCF was investigating.
Hurley learned in court that there was a warrant from Georgia for the arrest of Wells for violation of probation on a case from 2012 involving identity fraud.
It was also disclosed in court that Wells was arrested in 2010 in North Carolina for "transaction card fraud."
A check of records shows that Wells has also been arrested in Sunrise in 2002 for dealing in stolen property.
The Hard Rock Hotel and Casino has surveillance cameras inside its parking garages. Investigators are taking a look at surveillance tape from those cameras to see if there is any useful tape.
