MIAMI – The mother of a day care owner has been arrested in connection with a toddler's drowning late last year.
Zobeida Gonzalez was arrested and charged with aggravated manslaughter Wednesday.
Miami-Dade police said Jonathan Feliciano, 3, drowned in the swimming pool at a day care in December.
According to a court document obtained by Local 10, the boy's parents dropped him off at the Mayling Brache Family Day Care Home on a Sunday because they had to work at Miami International Airport.
The document said the boy had attended the day care every weekend since March, even though it was only licensed to operate on weekdays.
In an interview with Gonzalez, she told detectives that she left the boy to play with some toys outside, leaving him alone for about a minute to turn off the air conditioning unit in the shed.
Detectives said surveillance video from a neighboring establishment contradicted Gonzalez's statement because it showed that she left the boy unsupervised near the pool "for at least 29 minutes."
Police took a fence from the property as evidence and conducted a reenactment to determine if a child could fit through it. It was determined that the "fence gaps were inadequate from preventing children from accessing the pool," the document stated.
Investigators said gathered all the evidence and presented it to the state attorney's office, which filed the charge.
Gonzalez lives in the home where her daughter and son-in-law operate the day care in a backyard trailer. She was released from jail on bond Thursday.