Burnsville Woman Charged with Theft, Child Neglect

A Burnsville woman has been charged with failing to return a $24,500 rental car to the airport, and leaving her children alone to play in an apartment hallway while she drove to Minneapolis.

Danell Lea Bernstien, 30, is charged with felony theft, which carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $10,000 fine, and child neglect, a gross misdemeanor with a maximum penalty of a year in jail and a $3,000 fine.

Bernstien remains in the Dakota County Jail on a $60,000 bond on the theft and child neglect charges. She is also being held on a charge of being a fugitive from justice from North Dakota. An omnibus hearing in her case is scheduled for Feb. 7 in Dakota County District Court in Hastings.

According to the criminal complaint, Burnsville police were called to an apartment building in the 2700 block of County Road 42 West just after 5 p.m. Jan. 15 after a resident reported three young children playing in the hallway without any adult supervision.

Police found children ages 7, 5 and 3. The oldest child was wearing shorts, with no shirt, pants or shoes; the 5-year-old was wearing a t-shirt and shorts, and the youngest was wearing only pajama bottoms, with no shirt or shoes, according to the complaint. The children told police that their mother had left to “get money in Minneapolis.”

Police found several prescription drugs on a nightstand in the apartment’s bedroom, within easy reach of the children, according to the complaint.

When police checked Bernstien’s name, they found a warrant for her arrest in North Dakota on a felony conviction for writing a bad check.

Bernstien returned just after 5:30 p.m. and told officers that she had run out to the store and to pick up her boyfriend in Prior Lake. Police arrested her on the outstanding warrant.

Police spoke to Bernstien’s boyfriend, the father of the three children, who was sitting in a car in the building’s parking lot. The car, a 2010 Chrysler 3000, was registered in Missouri; when police checked the plates, they found that it had been reported stolen from a rental agency at the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport on Sept. 13 and was valued at $24,500.

Bernstien was taken to the Ramsey County workhouse and agreed to speak to police. She said she knew about the outstanding North Dakota warrant, and that she had left her children alone for about an hour and 45 minutes.

Bernstien told police that she had rented the car in July and that she had an option to extend the agreement, which she said she did in the middle of August and the end of September. She said that when she and the children’s father moved to Burnsville from Minneapolis, she forgot to extend the rental agreement beyond September, according to the complaint.