By Leela de Kretser
Managing Editor
The father of an abandoned baby girl who was delivered to a Queens firehouse in 2008 by a cabbie with a bogus story that she'd been left on his backseat was charged Thursday with statutory rape.
Carlos Cardenas, 29, was arrested after returning to Manhattan after two years on the run. He was charged with statutory rape of the child's 14-year-old mother.
Back in 2008, the abandonment of his six-month-old daughter Daniella shocked New Yorkers.
Livery cab driver Klever Sailema was at first treated as a hero when he gave the child to firefighters in Queens, claiming she had been left on his backseat.
It was later discovered that Sailema was lying and that he'd colluded with the child's father to get rid of the baby after the mother had run away.
Sailema was charged, but the case was eventually dismissed. Cardena, in the meantime, fled.
The mother, whose identity has never been revealed, and Daniella were taken into the custody of social services.
