The mother of the seven-year-old who brought a .22 caliber pistol and flare gun to his Far Rockaway school Thursday morning has been arraigned with a bail set at $35,000, said the Queens DA’s office.
“The defendant faces serious criminal charges,” said District Attorney Richard Brown. “It is disturbing to think of what could have potentially occurred in this case if authorities had not found out about the handgun when they did.”
In addition to weapon and child endangerment charges, Deborah Farley, 53, was also arrested for unlawful possession of marijuana.
According to the criminal complaint, Farley went to the principal’s office at Wave Preparatory Elementary School Thursday morning to allegedly to pick up her son for a dental appointment.
A short time later, she returned to the principal’s office and said that her son might have given a gun to a friend at the school and that one of her sons had put the gun inside her seven-year-old’s book bag.
After searching the friend’s bag, the principal found an orange and black flare gun.
A .22 caliber firearm, a full magazine with 10 .22 caliber rounds of ammunition and a clear bag containing 14 .22 caliber rounds of ammunition was found inside her son’s bag.
Farley told police that she had bought the .22 caliber gun in June or July for protection because of the people who hung around her stairwell when she came home at night.
She also allegedly admitted that she put the .22 caliber firearm and flare gun in her son’s book bag Wednesday night.
After realizing that the guns were still in her son’s bag, she went to the school around 10 a.m., and, lying, said that he had a dentist appointment.
Once outside the school, Farley checked the bag and her son told her that he had given the flare gun to a friend. At that point, she returned to the school and told the principal what had happened.
Following the incident, police searched Farley’s Far Rockaway residence, where they found four rounds of .22 caliber ammunition in a cardboard box in a bedroom in one apartment and seven small bags of marijuana from bedrooms in a second apartment.
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