The grieving widow of ABC producer Dax Tejera has been charged with child endangerment after she allegedly left their sleeping children to rush her dying husband to hospital.
Dax Tejera, who worked as the executive producer on ABC’s “This Week with George Stephanopoulos,” died aged 37 from a sudden heart attack on 23 December.
His death was confirmed in a memo to ABC staff on 24 December.
Now, it has emerged that his devastated wife Veronica Tejera, 33, was arrested and slapped with child endangerment charges just hours after his shocking death.
The NYPD said on Monday that Ms Tejera left their two young daughters – aged two and five months old – alone in a hotel room at The Yale Club in New York City.
Officers were called to a report of unattended children in a hotel room at around 11pm on 23 December and found that the two girls had been “left alone inside of a hotel room for an extended period of time,” police said.
Ms Tejera was later charged with two counts of acting in a manner injurious to a child.
However, the grieving widow has pushed back against this version of events in a statement to theNew York Post.
Ms Tejera said that she rushed her husband to hospital following his sudden collapse, leaving their daughters in the hotel room.
The girls were asleep at the time and she kept an eye on them with a child monitor, she said.
She also called her parents and a close friend to rush to the hotel to look after her children while she was at the hospital, she said.
But, when the group arrived at the hotel, staff refused to allow them into the room, she said.
“We had two cameras trained on my children as they slept, and I monitored them closely in the time I was away from them. While the girls were unharmed, I realise that it was a poor decision,” she said.
“I asked both a close friend and my parents to rush to my children’s hotel room to attend to them as I monitored them by camera. The hotel would not allow my friend in and instead called the NYPD.”
Ms Tejera asked for privacy for the family as they come to terms with her husband’s death.
“My family and I are devastated by Dax’s sudden passing. He has left behind a heartbroken family, and two daughters he loved with all his heart,” she said in the statement.
“Our family has suffered a terrible tragedy. I respectfully ask for privacy while my children and I mourn Dax’s death.”
She was given a desk appearance ticket and will appear in criminal court on the charges at a later date.
Tejera worked as the executive producer on Mr Stephanopoulos’ show from February 2020, after first joining ABC in 2017.
Before that, he worked as a researcher, editor and then producer at NBC for five years.
