Turlock Dad Accused Of Ditching Boy To Go Drinking

TURLOCK (CBS13) -- A Turlock man is accused of dropping off his 9-year-old son at a fast-food restaurant so that he could go drinking at a nearby bar.

Turlock police say 30-year-old Montgomery Borba Jr. left his son at Jack in the Box for hours while he knocked back drinks at a bar across the street last Thursday. When employees noticed the boy had been in the restaurant alone so long, they called police.

"I never want anything like that to happen in our restaurants," Jack in the Box owner Merti Lutfi told CBS13's Andrea Menniti. "It was really weird. I think they did the right thing by contacting the authorities and find out what was going on because it's kind of out of our hands. It's not something we're trained to deal with."

When officers got to the restaurant, the boy was nowhere to be found -- and it was 11 at night.

"We started looking around and passersby told us they saw the kid walking several blocks away," said Lt. Nino Amirfar of the Turlock Police Department.

Officers found the 9-year-old about a mile away. The boy told officers he was walking home.
Cops say Borba eventually showed up too.

"It's not a good situation at all leaving your child alone so you can go to the bar and get drunk," Amirfar said.

Borba was hauled away to Stanislaus County Jail, and police took the boy to stay with relatives.

"That's pretty sad, but as long as (the boy) is OK, that's the biggest thing," Lutfi said.

Borba faces child endangerment charges and has been released from jail.