Grandpa Paid Unhoused Woman $20 To Watch 7-Year-Old So He Could Go To Bar: Police

SACRAMENTO, CA — A man faces multiple charges after he paid an unhoused woman $20 to watch his 7-year-old granddaughter while he went to a bar, according to police.

Jason Warren, 54, was arrested on suspicion of felony child endangerment and other charges, police said.

Deputies responded around 7:45 p.m. Monday to the parking lot of a bar in the 5300 block of Auburn Boulevard when a passerby called 911 to report Warren was asking people for help, claiming the child had been kidnapped for human trafficking, according to the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office.

Warren was highly intoxicated and told the deputies he gave a woman experiencing homelessness $20 to bring the girl to a nearby thrift store while he went into the bar about four hours earlier, police said.

Authorities searched for half an hour before the woman heard an announcement from a sheriff’s helicopter and returned to the parking lot with the child, according to police. The woman confirmed Warren’s story and told deputies Warren was very intoxicated and she didn’t think he could take care of the girl, police said. The woman had taken the child to her camp for food, according to police.

The girl was not in distress and authorities determined that her aunt had full custody but that the aunt had asked Warren to watch the child while she was at work, according to police, who cleared the girl to return home with her aunt.

Warren was taken to Sacramento County jail and held on $75,000 bail, police said.