A former Iron Range woman admitted Monday to child endangerment charges after authorities said her two young children started their Hibbing apartment on fire while they were left home alone last winter.
Kenya Shamekia Perteet, 25, pleaded guilty to two gross misdemeanor counts at a hearing in State District Court in Hibbing.
Authorities said Perteet, now of St. Paul, told police that she "didn't really have a choice" but to leave her two daughters, ages 5 and 2, home alone while she went to work in February 2016.
The Hibbing Fire Department reported that the three-story apartment building at 2323 Fourth Ave. E. sustained approximately $15,000 in damage after the 2-year-old turned on a stove, igniting some papers that were left on the burners.
Under the terms of a plea agreement with the St. Louis County Attorney's Office, 6th Judicial District Judge David Ackerson granted Perteet a stay of imposition, which will allow her to keep the charges off her record if she successfully completes two years of unsupervised probation.
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According to court documents:
A next-door neighbor called 911 on Feb. 2, 2016, to report the fire after the two girls escaped the building and went to the neighbor's house. When officers arrived, they found the girls wrapped in blankets and shivering.
The 5-year-old told officers that her feet hurt from the cold and that they were hungry. The girl reported that her younger sister was playing with the stove and that it turned on, starting some papers on fire. She said she tried to throw the papers away, spreading the fire to the garbage, and it became hard to breathe in the apartment.
The girls left the building and received help from the neighbor. The older child was wearing only a skirt; the younger had no clothes on.
When officers reached Perteet at work, she acknowledged that she had left the children home alone while she went to work for a noon to 8 p.m. shift.
Perteet said she usually had a neighbor or friend watch the girls but was unable to find anyone on that day. She stated that she knew it "wasn't OK but didn't think anything like this would happen."
Fire officials said the apartment had smoke alarms, but none were working at the time.
