UPDATE: Cops: Mom Left Sons—Ages 3-7—Home Alone, Attorney Responds

Update 11:17 a.m., Thursday:

Attorney Mark Sherman of Stamford, who is representing Jacqueline Calabro,  denies both that alcohol was involved and that the children were left alone for 26 minutes.

"The charges are overblown and unnecessary," Sherman said in a statement emailed to Darien Patch. "By all accounts, Jacqueline is a responsible and caring mother and wife. We are confident the charges will be dismissed."

Twenty-six minutes was the time span between the initial call to police by Calabro's 7-year-old son and the time police found Calabro, according to police reports.

Original article, 11:13 p.m., Wednesday:

A mother of three boys, ages 7, 5, and 3, left them alone in their Tulip Tree Lane home for at least 26 minutes while she visited a neighbor and had a drink, Darien police said.

Police gave this account (an accusation not proven in court) about the incident:

Her 7-year-old became concerned enough to call police, who came to the home at 9:46 p.m. on Wednesday, Aug. 28, and as they approached the house, they saw the boy looking through a front window, next to a front door.

Police started searching for the mother in the neighborhood. They found that the rear, sliding door at the house was unlocked.

Police saw the mother's cell phone and were able to call her husband, who told them he was in Baltimore.

At 10:12, an officer found the mother, Jacqueline Calabro, at a home on Deerfield Road. The back of that home's property abuts the back of the Calabro family's property.

Calabro told police she was visiting her neighbor to pick something up. She said she had drank some wine at her friend's house while she was there. She did not appear to be intoxicated.

She said the two younger children had been sleeping, and she had told her eldest boy she would be out.

Police charged Calabro with three counts of risk of injury to a minor, a felony. She was released on a promise to appear Sept. 28 in state Superior Court in Stamford.