Jury gets case of attempted kidnapping caught on video
A Philadelphia jury returns Thursday for a second day of deliberations in the trial of a North Philadelphia man allegedly caught on video last summer trying to kidnap a 10-year-old girl as she walked with her 2-year-old brother.
A Philadelphia jury returns Thursday for a second day of deliberations in the trial of a North Philadelphia man allegedly caught on video last summer trying to kidnap a 10-year-old girl as she walked with her 2-year-old brother.
The Common Pleas Court jury of nine women and three men reviewed evidence against Carlos Figueroa-Fagot for about four hours Wednesday after closing arguments by Assistant District Attorney Joseph McGlynn and defense lawyer Geoffrey Kilroy, and legal instructions from Judge Alice Dubow.
Figueroa-Fagot, 34, who did not testify in his defense, is charged with attempted kidnapping, assault, and related offenses.
Figueroa-Fagot surrendered to police July 20, 2012, three days after the attempted kidnapping on Lee Street near Porter Street in South Philadelphia.
The attempted abduction of the girl as she walked with her brother - and her escape - was caught on a security camera. Its rebroadcast on television and the Internet led to Figueroa-Fagot's surrender.
The video, played to the jury at trial, shows a man following the children in his car as they walk home after buying water ice at a store. Another view shows the man approaching the children on foot. He grabs the girl, who thrashes about as her brother screams. The girl's resistance and screams make the kidnapper drop the girl and flee.
In his opening to the jury, McGlynn called the case "one little girl's absolute horror and every parent's nightmare."
The little girl was the first witness to testify on Monday's first day of trial.
She said she and her brother were walking hand in hand to their father's house with chocolate water ices when she saw Figueroa-Fagot sitting in a white car with one of the doors open.
When she and her brother turned the corner onto their father's block, Figueroa-Fagot grabbed her from behind, she said.
"He had his hand over my mouth and one under my leg," she said. "My brother started grabbing my leg. I was screaming and kicking and I think I bit his finger."
McGlynn asked what was going through her mind.
"I was afraid my brother would be on the streets alone," the little girl replied, eyes tearing.
Was she worried this man would take her away? McGlynn asked.
"I wasn't worried about that," she said. "I was thinking about my brother."
Although Kilroy did not present any evidence, he argued to the jury that Figueroa-Fagot was a victim of mistaken identity by the two young children.
At the time of Figueroa-Fagot's arrest last year, Kilroy said his client came to Philadelphia from Puerto Rico about three years ago and lived with his fiancee.
Figueroa-Fagot had no apparent occupation and a "long history" of treatment for mental illness, Kilroy said.
Figueroa-Fagot surrendered to police saying he was worried that his stepson, who had seen the video on the news, was going to turn him in.
But, according to McGlynn, Figueroa-Fagot denied that he was the abductor on the video: "The guy in the tape, that is not me."
