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L.I. Woman Charged With Leaving Kids In Blazing Hot Car

COMMACK, N.Y. (CBSNewYork) -- A Long Island mother stood charged Saturday with leaving her two young sons locked in a car in blazing heat.

As WCBS 880's Sophia Hall reported, authorities said when they found the boys – ages 1 and 5 – in the car parked in Commack just before 3 p.m. Friday, they were sweating profusely and their faces were flushed.

Their mother – Maria Luongo-Devivo, 49, of East Northport – was charged with child endangerment after a passerby noticed the boys locked in the car and called police.

L.I. Woman Charged With Leaving Kids In Blazing Hot Car

The children were in the car without proper ventilation for at least six minutes while Luongo-Devivo shopped in the Meat Farms store at 134 Commack Rd., Suffolk County police said.

Luongo-Devivo's husband, Bobby Devivo, defended his wife Saturday and called her a good mother.

"I trust my kids to her. She is sorry it happened. The kids are fine," Devivo said. "It was not the right thing to do, and she knows that now."

Devivo told CBS 2's Steve Langford is wife regrets the decision.

"My wife had a bad judgement to go into the supermarket for 1 or 2-minutes to look if they had something, she left my children in the car, she regrets doing it," he said, "There's not a better mother that I know, around, she just made a misjudgement and it'll never happen again."

The children were checked for health issues, but did not require further medical attention, police said. They were dropped off at a neighbor's home, and Child Protective Services was notified, police said.

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