Lynn sex offender charged with child endangerment

LYNN – Women at a local nail salon alerted police, and pooled money to buy clothes and food for the naked, screaming infant a woman found being pushed down Union Street in a stroller by the child’s drunken grandfather.”I said (to the grandfather), ?Why don’t you come inside, and wait for police and sort this out,” Greater Lynn Senior Services worker Robin deStefano said Tuesday, recounting Saturday afternoon’s incident. “So we went inside and the ladies got some money together, and one went to Walgreens and picked up some formula. Another went to Family Dollar and picked out a cute little outfit, another went to her car and had knit things? and I just held the baby until he fell asleep.”A few days later, a judge ordered the grandfather – who police noted was a Level 3 registered sex offender – held on $1,000 cash bail in what a defense attorney called a “very sad case.””The charges he is charged with are fairly serious,” Judge David Dunbar Livingston said in Lynn District Court Monday. “On the other hand, it indicates his daughter did drop (the child) off unbeknownst to (the defendant).”Gregory Leblanc, 58, of 195 Union St. #6, was arrested and charged with reckless endangerment of a child; an open-container violation and violation of a city knife ordinance; at 12:29 p.m. Saturday.He was arraigned Monday in Lynn District Court, where a plea of not guilty was entered on his behalf.Police responded to Union and Smith streets on the report of a man who appeared to be drunk and drinking a beer while pushing a baby carriage, according to a report by Lynn Police Officer Ralph Sirois Jr. Officers met deStefano standing on the corner and holding the baby in a blanket.DeStefano said Tuesday she was walking to a nail appointment when she heard a “yowling” from around the corner. She said she thought the noise was a cat at first, but then went around the corner and saw LeBlanc sitting on an overturned barrel and drinking a beer while next to a baby carriage.DeStefano said she assumed the man was waiting for somebody inside the salon. But she said nobody in the shop knew anything about the child. So she called the police and went back outside to look in the carriage.”It was an absolutely beautiful child, probably two or three months old, stark naked, in the carriage in the sun,” deStefano recalled. She said the child, although upset, appeared well cared for and healthy.She said she asked Leblanc if she could hold the child and if they could bring it inside, and Leblanc agreed. She said the child was lying on a clean diaper, but Leblanc said he couldn’t fasten it. Leblanc told deStefano he had prepared formula for the baby earlier, but deStefano recalled it was clear Leblanc was “in over his head.”So the women in the shop took charge of the baby.Police arrived and found Leblanc sitting inside the store and a Natural Ice beer can on the sidewalk that deStefano said belonged to Leblanc, according to Sirois. He noted Leblanc had red eyes, slurred speech and smelled of alcohol.”Officers had to grab him several times as we feared that he was going to fall over to the floor,” Sirois reported.Leblanc told officers his daughter had arrived with the baby at his room in a nearby rooming house at approximately 2 a.m. Saturday. She told her father she had been assaulted, according to the report.Leblanc said he woke up later Saturday and found his daughter and his cell phone were gone. But the baby apparently remained.The landlord allegedly told Leblanc babies were not allowed at the rooming house. So Leblanc said he took the baby out and was looking for a way to contact his daughter or the baby’s father when the police arrived, according to police.Police said the baby quickly drank all of the formula the women prepared and had diaper rash, prompting an emergency call to the Department of Children and Families. Police also reported Leblanc was a Level 3 registered sex offender previously sentenced to 12-20 years for three counts of aggravated rape.The