Florida Couple Abandons Teen On I-75 With Guns, Cash
By Digital Team
Blue RAM Media
October 11, 2025
NORTH PORT, Fla. A couple in Florida is facing charges after police said they left a 16-year-old boy by himself on the side of Interstate 75 and told him to fend for himself.
Police said the couple also left a bag of handguns and cash with the teenager.
According to a probable cause affidavit, North Port police received a call Oct. 1 just before 6 p.m. about a boy seen walking along I-75 about a mile south of Sumter Boulevard.
The responding officer found the teen, who told him he had been in a vehicle with Bradley Leon Guerrero Santos, 36, and Roseanella Mendola Borja, 35, and an 8-year-old sibling.
The teen said that when he got home from school, the couple informed him they were taking a trip. When he returned from walking the family dog, he saw they were frantically throwing clothes into duffel bags and loading them into their car.
When the vehicle got onto the interstate, the teen told the couple he did not want to go on the trip, which he was told was “either to Guam or Idaho,” the affidavit said.
At that point, the teen told police the couple pulled over to the side of the road, gave him two bags containing a .40 caliber handgun, a 9mm handgun and some cash. They told him to get out of the car and take care of the house as they drove away.
Attempts were made by police to call the couple’s phones, but each time, the person answering the phone either denied being Santos or simply hung up.
When police took the teen home, they found the garage door and the front door of the home wide open. When police entered the home to investigate, they found the home “to be cluttered in disarray, with firearms lying out in the open,” the affidavit said.
Police were able to track the couple’s phones to an address in Wauchula, Florida, where local police found and detained them.
Santos and Borja have been charged with neglect of a child without great bodily harm. Santos has also been charged with allowing a juvenile to have possession of a firearm.
As of Wednesday, both were still in the Sarasota County Jail, each under a $500,000 bond.
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