NEW YORK — The man who kidnapped a 5-year-old girl in Queens on Tuesday and the girl’s mother, who apparently asked the man to keep an eye on the girl, are now both facing charges.
Police arrested Franz Villa, 75, and charged him with kidnapping the girl. He also faces charges of unlawful imprisonment, acting in a way that is harmful to a child, criminal sexual acts with a victim under the age of 11, and abuse with sexual motives.
The girl’s mother, 30-year-old Kimberly Pijuan, has been charged with conduct harmful to a child.
The NYPD searched Jackson Heights for hours on Tuesday with K-9s and helicopters. trying to track down the 5-year-old girl.
Pijuan called 911 at 1 p.m say her daughter was missing.
Sources tell CBS New York that the child was with her mother at the Foodtown supermarket on 37th Avenue at 9 a.m. hours earlier. The girl wanted to go to the park, but her mother did not.
We are told that the mother ran into an acquaintance at the store – a 75-year-old man she had taken the bus with – and for some reason agreed for the man to take her daughter to the park.
Nearly eight hours later, at around 4:30 p.m., police said three Good Samaritans recognized the child from news reports. She was with the man at the Roosevelt Avenue subway station around the corner from Foodtown.
The Good Samaritans apprehended an officer, and the police took the man into custody and took the girl to the police station, where she was evaluated by paramedics and reunited with her mother.
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