By Yepoka Yeebo
Jennifer Rodriguez was released from Rikers Island this week, but her son, who disappeared from a foster home in the middle of the night almost two weeks ago, is still missing.
Judge Terrence McElrath released Rodriguez, 23, from Rikers Island on Tuesday after she passed a lie detector test. The judge ordered her to cooperate with the Administration for Children’s Services to help find her son, 7-year-old Patrick Alford, by next Tuesday, when another hearing will be held. Rodriguez had been charged with contempt in a Staten Island Family Court a week earlier. McElrath said he believed Rodriguez knew where her son was.
“I don’t think a 7-year-old is out on his own in this cold weather caring for himself,” the judge said. “He’s with someone.”
Alford was placed in foster care, with his sister, in East New York four weeks ago after his mother was found guilty of petty larceny. The New York City Administration for Children’s Services found that both children had been neglected.
Caseworkers and family members had testified that Rodriguez had asked her son about what kind of public transport he took, and had knocked on the door of his foster home the day after he disappeared despite later testifying that she did not know the address.
Alford disappeared from the lobby of a building in the Spring Creek development on Vandalia Avenue in East New York at about 9 p.m., on January 22. He and his foster mother were taking a bag of garbage to a trash compactor when he disappeared, according to the police said. He was wearing a red T-shirt, blue jeans and black sneakers.
Family members told the police that Alford had tried to run away from his foster home once before during the three weeks he had been living there.
According to Patrick’s aunt Claudia Ortiz said, police dogs lost his scent on the Belt Parkway near his foster home. The police searched nearby parkland as well as family homes in Staten Island, and followed leads in Baltimore and Florida.
“We’ve been going through every apartment, every elevator shaft, every closet and nothing,” said one officer stationed at a temporary command post on Vandalia Avenue, where Alford was last seen.
According to Janine Kava of the State Division of Criminal Justice Services, familial abduction is the second highest cause of disappearances after children running away.
The Division of Criminal Justice Services listed about 150 cases of familial abduction, against almost 19,000 runaways.
The Administration for Children’s Services agreed that familial abductions are rare.
“It is highly unusual for parents to remove children in foster care without permission,” said Sharman Stein, director of communications for the Administration for Children’s Services, said from the ACS in an e–mail.
“It is against the law,.“ she said.
Patrick Alford is 4 feet 8 inches -foot-8 and 65 pounds with a scar over his left eye. Anyone with information is asked to call Crime Stoppers at (800) 577– TIPS.
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