Arrested mom left children with Facebook babysitter for 6 days: JPSO

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The Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office arrested a woman accused of abandoning her two children for six days with a babysitter she met on Facebook. Mariah Lebouef, 20, of Kenner, was booked with child desertion, said Glen T. Boyd, spokesman for the department after the babysitter contacted authorities on Sunday (April 23).

The reporting person, a woman who lives in Marrero, told deputies Lebouef reached out to her on Tuesday (April 18) after spotting a two-year-old Facebook post the woman published offering babysitting services, an arrest report said. The woman and Lebouef did not know one another.

The woman agreed to watch Lebouef's two children, ages 1 and 2, that same day and picked them up from Lebouef's Kenner home. Lebouef told the woman she would be watching the toddlers only until 2 a.m., the arrest report said.

Lebouef didn't show up until 4:30 a.m. Wednesday. She paid the woman but asked for continued babysitting services because she was being put out of a residence and had nowhere for them to go, the arrest report said. The woman agreed after Lebouef promised to return Wednesday evening to retrieve the children.

When Lebouef failed to return, the woman tried calling but got no answer. The woman finally got in touch with Lebouef through a third-party on Thursday, an arrest report said.

That unidentified third party brought Lebouef over to the woman's Marrero home where she paid the woman an additional $20 and again promised to return later that day to pick up the children. The woman agreed, but Lebouef didn't come back and she stopped answering her telephone again, Boyd said. The woman finally contacted the Sheriff's Office on Sunday.

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