Mother’s boyfriend charged with endangering the 7-year-old who died in Newark – NJ.com

Prosecutors have charged a Union man with child endangerment in the suspicious death of a 7-year-old boy in Newark, authorities said Tuesday.

Detectives from the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office arrested Mark Harper on Monday evening, less than a day after Aydin Brown was pronounced dead at Newark Beth Israel Medical Center, authorities said. Harper, 36, remains jailed at the Essex County Correctional Facility pending a detention hearing in state Superior Court in Newark, according to the prosecutor’s office.

It was not immediately clear whether Harper had an attorney who could comment on the criminal allegations.

While the circumstances of Brown’s death remain under investigation, the prosecutor’s office said Harper — his mother’s boyfriend — was caring for the University Charter School second-grader before Brown was rushed to the hospital Monday morning.

Newark police officers, responding to a report of a sick or injured child, found Brown unresponsive in a home in the 100 block of Weequahic Avenue around 8 a.m., authorities said. He was pronounced dead at the hospital just over an hour later.

Investigators said the cause and manner of Brown’s death will be determined by an autopsy at the Northern Regional Medical Examiner’s Office.

The prosecutor’s office has urged anyone with information about the case, which is being handled by the county Homicide Task Force, to call the office’s tip line at 877-847-7432.

Thomas Moriarty may be reached at tmoriarty@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @ThomasDMoriarty. Find NJ.com on Facebook.

Have a tip? Tell us. nj.com/tips

Get the latest updates right in your inbox. Subscribe to NJ.com’s newsletters.