{"id":15382,"date":"2025-10-24T20:01:27","date_gmt":"2025-10-24T20:01:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/15382\/"},"modified":"2025-10-24T20:01:27","modified_gmt":"2025-10-24T20:01:27","slug":"woman-who-abandoned-newborn-at-penn-station-told-cops-she-was-looking-for-an-orphanage-source","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/15382\/","title":{"rendered":"Woman who abandoned newborn at Penn Station told cops she was looking for an orphanage: source"},"content":{"rendered":"

The woman who abandoned her newborn daughter in bustling Penn Station<\/a> just hours after giving birth at her Queens home told cops she was trying to find an orphanage when she left the child on the subway steps, the Daily News has learned.<\/p>\n

Assa Diawara, 30, confessed to leaving the infant at the foot of a staircase on the downtown No. 1 train platform<\/a> at the 34th St.-Penn Station stop at about 9:30 a.m. on Monday, cops and prosecutors said.<\/p>\n

The baby \u2014 who still had her umbilical cord attached \u2014 was found by commuters soon after and taken to Bellevue Hospital<\/a>. The infant is reportedly healthy, officials said.<\/p>\n

Diawara was arrested late the next day in Jamaica, Queens, after cops tracked her down.<\/p>\n

\"PolicePolice released images of a woman they said abandoned a newborn girl at Penn Station. (NYPD)<\/p>\n

When questioned, Diawara claimed that she gave birth inside her basement apartment late Sunday night into Monday morning. She said she went to Manhattan to find an orphanage for the baby, but couldn\u2019t find one, so she left the baby at the station, a police source with knowledge of the case said.<\/p>\n

Cops charged Diawara\u2014who works at a Food Bazaar and has no criminal record\u2014 with abandonment of a child and child endangerment.<\/p>\n

A judge on Wednesday approved Diawara for supervised release<\/a>. She was allowed to leave without bail, but will need to check in with a caseworker who will ensure that she will return to court.<\/p>\n

Neighbors said she hasn\u2019t been back at her basement apartment since she was released from the hospital.<\/p>\n

\"AssaAssa Diawara leaves Manhattan Criminal Court after police said she left her new born baby girl on a downtown platform at Times Square.(Kerry Burke \/ New York Daily News)<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s horrible,\u201d said a 64-year-old neighbor who gave her name only as Teresa. \u201cI feel sorry for both. Because who knows what she was going through. I\u2019m a mother, I have two grown men.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLeave it with one of your neighbors,\u201d she added. \u201cIf she would\u2019ve left it with one of us, it\u2019s a different thing, right? Or if she needed help, I would have helped her. Any of us would have.\u201d<\/p>\n

Diawara was caught on surveillance video wearing a red headscarf, pink pants, glasses and a multicolored top that might be a hospital gown as she took the baby, who was wrapped in a blanket and cradled in her arms, down into the train station, cops said.<\/p>\n

\"AssaAssa Diawara leaves Manhattan Criminal Court after police said she left her new born baby girl on a downtown platform at Times Square. (Kerry Burke \/ New York Daily News)<\/p>\n

NYPD detectives conducting an exhaustive search of surveillance footage<\/a> in Midtown captured images of Diawara coming out of Penn Station empty handed, the sources said.<\/p>\n

She was recorded getting into a livery cab which took her to Jamaica where she was dropped off. Cops canvassed that area, and a neighbor recognized her from the surveillance footage and directed police to her home, where she was taken into custody without incident.<\/p>\n

In New York State, a newborn baby up to 30 days old can be legally anonymously surrendered under the safe haven law by bringing the infant to any hospital, police stationhouse or fire station and handing the child directly to a staff member.<\/p>\n

With Emma Seiwell<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The woman who abandoned her newborn daughter in bustling Penn Station just hours after giving birth at her…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15383,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[262,263,266,85,267,75,84,83,9,24,264,12,63,261,265],"class_list":{"0":"post-15382","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-manhattan","8":"tag-city","9":"tag-county","10":"tag-crime-and-public-safety","11":"tag-latest-headlines","12":"tag-local-news","13":"tag-manhattan","14":"tag-manhattan-headlines","15":"tag-manhattan-news","16":"tag-new-york","17":"tag-new-york-city","18":"tag-new-york-county","19":"tag-news","20":"tag-nyc","21":"tag-nyc-crime","22":"tag-sub-county-region"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15382","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15382"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15382\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15383"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15382"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15382"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15382"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}