CHICAGO (STMW) – Child endangerment charges have been filed against the father of a 9-month-old baby who was abandoned at an Archdiocese of Chicago building on the Near North Side Thursday afternoon.

James Evans was charged with misdemeanor endangering the life and health of a child, according to police.

At 11:45 a.m. Friday, — nearly 19 hours after the child was abandoned — Evans went to the Town Hall District police station to report the baby missing. He was arrested, according to police who said it marked the 40th time he’d been arrested.

Around 4:30 p.m. Thursday, two individuals were seen leaving the baby at the doorstep of a building in the 800 block of North Rush Street, said police News Affairs Officer Hector Alfaro.

Both immediately fled the scene, Alfaro said. The baby was treated at Children’s Memorial Hospital and is in an unidentified condition, he said.

Before reporting her missing, Evans slept near Water Tower and the beach he went home and fell asleep, and then went to report her missing, police said.

The Illinois Dept. of Children and Family Services was notified of the child, confirmed Kendall Marlowe, a spokesman for the agency, and it has opened an investigation.

While Illinois does have a “Safe Haven” law that allows parents to relinquish newborns at specified locations, such as fire stations, this child was far older than that law’s 30-day age limit, Marlowe said.

In addition, the Archdiocese would not qualify as a “Safe Haven” location, Marlowe said, because it is not staffed 24 hours a day.

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