VISTA – The owner of an Oceanside day care center, who is accused of losing track of a 3-year-old girl who was found later more than two miles away, must stand trial on a charge of felony child abuse, a judge ruled Wednesday.

Laura Martinez, 30, is accused in the Jan. 15 disappearance of the toddler, who was dropped off at the defendant's day care center on Sunburst Drive around 6 a.m. that day.

Martinez called police at 5:40 p.m. and reported the child had been gone for 10 minutes, when she had actually been missing for nine hours, according to Deputy District Attorney Marnie Stein.

Oceanside police took custody of the toddler at 8:30 the next morning after she wandered into a kindergarten classroom at an elementary school.

Defense attorney Tom Matthews said his client was upstairs at the center with a 104-degree temperature on the day the child wandered off. Child care was provided by an licensed assistant who didn't realize the child was missing, Matthews said.

Martinez has run her business successfully for 11 years, and “overnight, her livelihood has been stripped” because of an “unfortunate incident” that was not criminal in nature, her attorney said.

According to published reports, Martinez was cited in 2006 by the state Department of Social Services when she left 10 children younger than 6 with an assistant.

The state ordered the defendant to hire another assistant, which she did, and nothing further came of the case.

A judge at Martinez's arraignment in January ordered her to refrain from providing child care services while her license is suspended, and to inform her clients of the charge she's facing.

After a preliminary hearing at the Vista Courthouse, Superior Court Judge Timothy Casserly ordered Martinez to return to court June 11 for a readiness conference and set a July 28 trial date.

She faces a sentence from probation to six years in prison if convicted, Stein said.