Sebring Woman Arrested On Child Neglect Charge

SEBRING - A Sebring woman was free from the Highlands County Jail on Monday on $1,000 bail after she was arrested on a third-degree felony child neglect charge.

Sheriff's investigators claim she abandoned a 2-year-old girl with Downs Syndrome into the care of a local woman for more than a month.

Melissa Rodriguez, 27, also known as Melissa Rosalia Lopez, 26, also known as Melissa Jiminez Acosta, 26, and also known as Rosalia Melissa Lopez, 27, was booked into the Highlands County Jail over the weekend on the child neglect charge.

The child was left during that time without adequate medical care, medical services or other financial funds to assist in her support, the report stated.

Where Rodriguez was, at since she made contact with the caretaker, some time around Aug. 31 and the present, depended upon who was asked, as best can be determined from a sheriff's report that repeatedly was redacted due to HIPAA privacy concerns.

She was located in a hospital in the Prince William County area in Virginia. While there she reportedly told a police sergeant that she had just relocated there from Sebring and that she did not have any children, but three of her children were deceased, according to the report.

What Rodriguez was being treated for in the hospital was private.

Sheriff's Central Records personnel were not allowed to say if Rodriguez is the mother of the child in question, nor were they allowed to identify any of the other people involved in the child's case.

The little victim's fingerprints, photographs and DNA have been obtained from the victim, the probable cause affidavit stated.