ODESSA, Texas (KMID/KPEJ)- An Odessa woman was arrested Wednesday after investigators said she allegedly left a two-year-old home alone for more than five hours while she went to a strip club. Veronica Rogers, 23, has been charged with Abandoning/Endangering a Child with Intent to Return, a state jail felony. 

According to an Odessa Police Department report, around 5:30 a.m. on August 27, officers were called to a home on Cabrito Drive to investigate a disturbance. At the scene, officers discovered that two women, including Rogers, were engaged in a physical fight before officers arrived on the scene. Also at the scene, officers found a two-year-old little girl in tears. Rogers told investigators that she and the child were the only two people in the home.

Rogers was arrested that morning and charged with Assault Causing Bodily Injury. However, later, officers were contacted by the child’s mother, who said Rogers had agreed to babysit her two-year-old in exchange for money during the night and morning in which she was arrested. The mother said she discovered that between midnight and 5:00 a.m., the hours she should have been home alone with the little girl, Rogers was instead posting images to social media that showed she was actually at a bar with the woman she was later accused of assaulting. 

The mother said she texted Rogers and asked her who was caring for her daughter but was given conflicting stories that no one else could corroborate. Investigators then re-interviewed the woman Rogers was accused of assaulting and discovered that the two had been at a bar and strip club for about five hours; when they returned to Rogers’ home, the woman said she found the two-year-old asleep and alone. 

When questioned, Rogers reportedly told investigators that the child had been left with her mother, and that she and the woman she’d been out with had stopped to pick the child up on their way home; something the alleged assault victim denied. 

Rogers was arrested on a warrant on September 27 and was released the same day on a $4,000 bond.