UPDATE: 1:32 p.m. The child welfare service, the Patronato Nacional de la Infancia (PANI), confirmed that at 10:31 this morning, tElena Umaña had not shown up to pick up her son. Fanny Cordero, spokesperson for the PANI said they were waiting for the mother to come forward and give explanations that would allow them to determine the course of the case.
The arrest of national singer Elena Umaña made the headlines Monday night, for alleged negligence of leaving her youngest son, Nathan, two years of age, in the vehicle while she attended to a judicial proceeding in the Heredia courthouse.
This is what happened according to the Ministerio Seguridad Publico. At 5:15 p.m. in downtown Heredia, a crying child is discovered inside a vehicle in a parking lot. When police arrived a woman had taken the child out of the car because it was crying. The child is transferred to the Heredia police command and the vehicle is investigated, found to belong to Mrs. Elena Umaña Rodríguez.
The MPS added that in coordination with a lawyer who told police that Mrs. Umaña was inside the country filing a complaint for non-compliance of measures, the duty prosecutor immediately ordered the woman’s detention.
The PANI – the child welfare agency – was called in.
The 43-year-old singer was released around 11 p.m.
Talking to La Nacion, Umaña said she expected to be in the courthouse not more than 15 minutes, but got tied up in the paperwork. She didn’t want to get into the nature of the filing with the press, only to say it was ‘necessary’ to be done before the courthouse closed at 4:30 p.m.
The singer said she had taken her son out of the car, and while walking to the courthouse, he fell asleep in the stroller and decided to take him back to the car. “It is an error I will never recover from, I estimate to be less than 15 minutes,” said Umaña.
“I cracked open the window to allow air to get in, I felt bad waking him up…I made the worst decision, I recognize it, I accept it and will never forgive myself,” she said.
“I ask for understanding from my fans who love me and who follow me and give me their support, I know it is a very difficult situation to understand, thank God I am already at home and tomorrow, of course, I will be there at the first hour to bring my son home, I will exhaust the legal instances for that to happen, I have no fear because there is no better judge than oneself … my children are everything to me, both Natash, in her wonderful adolescence and Nathan, in his tender years … Nathan is the engine of our little family. Yes, I made a terrible mistake. No there is no justification … I learned my lesson and I hope that other parents learn from my mistake,” said Umaña.
The social media tore Umaña apart, among the comments posted:
- “There are no excuses, total negligence”
- “A child can not be left alone for a second, especially in a car and in a parking lot. Truly, in this world there are brainless”
- “The bloodsucker seeing how she can take her ex for more money, old idiot, you should never leave a child alone, especially a two-year-old only has ‘jupa’ (head) to think about the $$ and the rest to see what happens”
- “Of the some 1,206 words she used in her statement … 98% is so that people have pity (…)”
Source (in Spanish): La Nacion
