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Drunken Dad Ordered To Pay $14K For Missing Son Search

PASADENA (CBS) —  A drunken father who left his 3-year-old son alone in his car in a Pasadena parking garage for nearly 24 hours last fall was ordered Tuesday to pay nearly $14,000 in restitution for costs associated with the boy's search.

Pasadena Superior Court Judge Suzette Clover ordered Joe Louie Kurihara, 23, of West Covina, to pay the Pasadena Police Department $13,809.66, according to Deputy District Attorney Carolina Lugo.

Kurihara pleaded no contest Feb. 9 to a felony count of child abuse and one misdemeanor count each of resisting, obstructing or delaying a peace officer, battery upon an officer and public intoxication.

He was immediately sentenced to one year each in county jail and in a residential drug treatment program. He also got five years probation and was ordered to undergo 52 weeks of parenting classes.

Kurihara's son, Dylan, was found asleep the evening of Oct. 17 after a local man heard that a toddler was missing in the area and went looking for him. Rowdy Metzger, a father himself, soon found the boy strapped in a car seat in a soiled diaper in a parking garage at Green Street and Madison Avenue.

Police started looking for the boy earlier that day when they got a call from his mother, who had been calling hospitals and police stations, looking for her son.

Kurihara apparently left a wedding at the Masonic Temple on Oct. 16 about 9:30 p.m. with the boy and put him in the vehicle. The man was arrested about an hour later at the Pasadena Civic Center.

Police questioned Kurihara about the toddler, but he told them he couldn't remember having his son with him.

 (©2011 CBS Local Media, a division of CBS Radio Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Wire services contributed to this report.)

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