Mom of N.J. teen who went missing for a month is charged with endangering children – NJ.com

The mother of a 14-year-old East Orange girl, who ran away from home and was missing for nearly a month, was charged with two counts of endangering the welfare of a child, officials said Friday.

Jamie A. Moore, 39, of East Orange, was arrested earlier on Friday and sent to the Essex County Correctional Facility ahead of a court hearing, according to Acting Essex County Prosecutor Theodore N. Stephens.

“The endangering charges include allegations of physical abuse and also neglect,” Stephens said in a joint statement with East Orange Police Chief Phyllis Bindi.

Officials with the state Division of Child Protection and Permanency also took custody of her two children, including the 14-year-old and a 3-year-old son, according to the prosecutor.

The arrest was announced the same day that authorities announced Moore’s daughter was found safe in New York City.

“She was found, last night, and she was found unharmed,” the prosecutor said Friday during a press conference in Newark. “It did appear that she was a runaway.”

Stephens said the the girl spent time at several locations in New Jersey while she was missing, before going to a shelter in Brooklyn. Someone contacted her Thursday night and she met that person at a location in upper Manhattan, he said. The New York Police Department found her in Harlem and brought her to a hospital.

Essex County authorities said there were no signs she was abducted. In the days after she was reported missing, police and other officials issued a plea for tips from the public and announced an increased reward for information.

The prosecutor’s office formed a task force of local, county, state and federal law enforcement agencies to investigate the case.

The teen was reportedly last seen at about 10 a.m. on Oct. 14 at Poppies Deli, an East Orange market on Central Avenue near her home, officials said. The girl returned home and told her mother that she had lost the credit card she paid with before heading out again. She ventured out again and did not return home.

Note: NJ Advance Media is not naming the teenage girl because she is a juvenile and the alleged victim of a crime.

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Noah Cohen may be reached at ncohen@njadvancemedia.com.