SALEM — A Peabody mother is facing drunken-driving and child endangerment charges after ordering her frightened 11-year-old son out of an SUV Sunday night and driving off without him, police said.
Cheri Cordero, 40, of 5 Lake Ave. is due in Salem District Court this morning to answer to the charges, including second-offense drunken driving and two counts of child endangerment while driving drunk.
"My mother has been drinking," the 11-year-old boy told police and bystanders who watched Cordero order the boy to get out of the 2008 Cadillac Escalade on White Street near the intersection of Derby Street, according to a police report.
The boy told police that his mother then drove off with his 9-year-old brother.
The bystanders called the police and tried to comfort the boy.
Cordero returned to the scene near the Hawthorne Cove Marina shortly before 9 p.m., just as Patrolman Gil Priddy and Sgt. Robert Lubas were arriving.
The boy said they had all been at a party on a friend's boat, where, he told the officers, his mother was drinking beer and mixed drinks with rum.
He said that as they were leaving, his mother got a call from her boyfriend and got into an argument on the phone. She then started yelling at her sons, the boy reported.
The witnesses said they heard Cordero yelling at the boy to get out and then saw the door opening and the little boy coming out. Cordero then drove off.
When Cordero pulled up, the officers noted that she had bloodshot, glassy eyes, smelled of alcohol and was slurring her words, but Cordero, described in court papers as a stay-at-home mother, denied drinking.
She allegedly told officers that the kids were upset because they didn't want to leave the party.
She would later go on to fail two field sobriety tests. Cordero refused a Breathalyzer exam at the police station.
Because of that refusal, police seized her driver's license. They also contacted the Department of Children and Families.
Cordero has been free on $500 bail, set by a bail clerk, since shortly after her arrest.
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