Babysitter Accused of Leaving Children to Pick Up Sister

A 19-year-old babysitter was arrested Saturday on charges she left the children she was taking care of to go rescue her stranded sister, according to Montclair police.

Officers responded just after 8:30 p.m. last Saturday to a Haddon Place home after a resident there told cops that he a spotted his neighbor’s 3-year-old son outside without a jacket looking for his parents, police said.

The neighbor grabbed the boy and went into the boy’s home to look for the babysitter who was supposed to be watching him and his 1-year-old brother, according to police.

The babysitter was nowhere to be found and the youngest child was asleep in his crib, cops said.

Police on the scene called the children's parents, who said they were on their way home from Manhattan.

At 9:45 p.m. the babysitter pulled into the driveway behind the wheel of the family’s second car.  

Sherline Nicholas, 19, of Orange, told officers that her 17-year-old sister had an emergency and had been stranded on Rt. 22. The babysitter panicked and took her employers’ Acura to go get her sister and thought she could return before the children woke up, according to police.  

The 19 year old was placed under arrest and charged with endangering the welfare of a child and taking a motor vehicle without consent, police said.

A judge set Nicholas’s bail at $50,000, police said.