Ex-boyfriend kidnaps woman’s 10-year-old son to force a meet-up in Illinois, feds say
An Illinois man is headed to prison after officials say he kidnapped a 10-year-old boy to try and get his ex-girlfriend to meet up with him.
The 39-year-old man pleaded guilty to one count of interstate extortion with a threat to injure.
McClatchy News reached out to the man’s attorney and did not immediately receive a response. It is not naming the man to protect the identity of the child.
On May 28, 2022, a woman called police to a home in East St. Louis and said a man came to the home threatening to harm her children, according to court documents.
The man broke into the apartment of his ex-girlfriend’s mother at 4:20 a.m., and his ex-girlfriend’s children were in the apartment sleeping, court documents said.
The man told three children inside to go with him, but two of them ignored his demands and went back to sleep, officials said.
However, a 10-year-old boy in the home followed his directions, according to a criminal complaint.
The boy told officials he went with the man “because he was scared and didn’t want (the man) to get mad, because when he gets mad, he breaks things and beats his mom,” court documents said.
The woman had a protection order against the man, which also covered the children, according to officials.
“The defendant targeted a child to mentally and emotionally abuse both the victim and the victim’s mother,” U.S. Attorney Rachelle Aud Crowe, said in a Dec. 4 news release.
After the man took off with the child, he called his ex, “cursing and yelling at her for contacting police,” officials said.
A detective with the East St. Louis Police Department spoke with the man over the phone twice, urging him to return with the child, but he refused, the complaint says. Another person was with the man, and authorities asked if he would allow that person to return with the child, but the man ended the call, according to court records.
The man then contacted his ex and told her to meet him in St. Louis, Missouri, and gave her directions of where to go, according to the complaint. Authorities went with her, but the man contacted her and her mother several times by video to see if she had police with her, officials said.
Around 9 a.m., the boy was found at a train station in East St. Louis with the person traveling with the man. During an interview, the passenger told authorities he needed a ride, so he got in the car with the man at the apartment complex, court records said.
That’s when the man went into an apartment and came back with the boy, the passenger told police. He said the man drove them around the area and then drove to St. Louis, Missouri. He told police the man took the child to try and get his ex to meet with him, officials said.
The passenger said he told the man “that he needed his medication and would take (the child) back to Illinois.” The man dropped the two off at a bus station in downtown St. Louis, where the two took a train back to East St. Louis, court documents say.
The boy told police that when he was with the man, they stopped at McDonald’s and a gas station, according to court documents.
The man was sentenced to five years in prison.
“His actions were calculated and dangerous, thus warranted this prison sentence,” Crowe said.
This story was originally published December 5, 2023 at 5:25 PM with the headline "Ex-boyfriend kidnaps woman’s 10-year-old son to force a meet-up in Illinois, feds say."
