NEW YORK - A cabdriver accused of making up a story about a baby being abandoned in his taxi faces charges in the abandonment of the girl that could earn him a year in jail, officials said Sunday.

The 44-year-old driver, Klever Sailema, was initially praised as a Good Samaritan after he told police an unknown man left the 6-month-old child in his livery cab.

He was arraigned late Saturday on charges of falsely reporting an incident and criminal facilitation, said Kevin Ryan, spokesman for Queens prosecutor Richard Brown. Sailema’s girlfriend, 21-year-old Maria Siavichay, was arraigned on a charge of criminal facilitation. Investigators say she is the child’s aunt.  read more »