KANAWHA COUNTY, WV (WOWK) – The case against a father accused of child neglect after his infant was hospitalized with meth in his system is being sent to circuit court.

David Mallo, 27, of St. Albans, waived his preliminary hearing in the case in Kanawha County Magistrate Court on Wednesday. Mallo was arrested last month and charged with child neglect after his 5-month-old son tested positive for methamphetamine.

According to a criminal complaint from Kanawha County Magistrate Court, first responders were called to a home in the St. Albans area on June 21 regarding an unresponsive 5-month-old boy. The complaint says Mallo told the 911 caller that he found the infant unresponsive after he woke up from a nap.

A Kanawha County Sheriff’s deputy went to Charleston Area Medical Center Women’s and Children’s Hospital to further investigate. The complaint says the infant’s temperature was 105 degrees when he was brought to the hospital.

According to the complaint, the child was given a drug screening and tested positive for methamphetamine. During the investigation, deputies say they were told the child had been transported to a different hospital by helicopter due to his condition.

A deputy went back to the home and spoke with Mallo. The complaint says Mallo allegedly admitted to smoking marijuana but didn’t know how the baby had come into contact with meth. According to the complaint, Mallo initially told authorities he had been clean from meth for about a year.

The complaint says the deputy was concerned about Mallo’s impairment and called a Drug Recognition Expert with the KCSO to help investigate. The deputies gave Mallo field sobriety tests, in which he allegedly showed signs of impairment, according to the complaint. The deputies also said Mallo had glassy bloodshot eyes, eyelid tremors, and a dry mouth.

After the sobriety tests, the complaint says Mallo admitted to smoking marijuana before he had taken a nap with the baby. The complaint states deputies determined Mallo was “under the influence of a controlled substance/drugs.”

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According to the complaint, after the sobriety tests, Mallo admitted to recently relapsing and using meth. He then allowed deputies to search the home in which they found three marijuana bowls, and a metal tin in the microwave that contained suspected meth.

Deputies say during the search, they also found the home, a camper, to be “extremely hot,” and they had previously asked Mallo about the air conditioning, in which he said he used fans to cool the camper down.

Mallo was taken to the South Central Regional Jail on a $100,000 cash-only bond. If convicted, he could face up to 10 years in a state correctional facility and up to a $3,000 fine.

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