A 38-year-old illegal immigrant from Ecuadorian has been indicted on kidnapping charges after prosecutors said he lured a four-year-old girl away from her family at a Patchogue laundromat and brought her to a nearby library, Suffolk County officials announced.
Carlos Corte was arraigned before State Supreme Court Justice John B. Collins on charges of second-degree kidnapping and endangering the welfare of a child. Prosecutors said the incident occurred March 28 at about 11:20 a.m. while the child and her family were doing laundry.
According to investigators, Corte entered the laundromat without any laundry and spent nearly 10 minutes speaking with the child in a rear vestibule. Authorities alleged that he then held the door open, gestured for the child to follow him and walked away with her through downtown Patchogue.
Prosecutors said Corte later took the girl to the children’s section of the Patchogue-Medford Library, where staff initially believed he was the child’s father. Librarians became suspicious after Corte allegedly claimed the child had followed him into the building and notified security.
The child’s mother, assisted by witnesses who saw the pair walking together, eventually located her daughter at the library. Prosecutors said Corte apologized for taking the child, who later told investigators he planned to bring her to a “secret room.”
Corte, who authorities said entered the United States illegally from Ecuador, was later detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. If convicted of the top charge, he faces up to 25 years in prison.
Following his initial arraignment, a judge ordered Corte released with GPS monitoring despite prosecutors requesting bail.
After ICE detained him, prosecutors obtained a court writ to return him to Suffolk County. Corte remains jailed pending further court proceedings and is scheduled to appear again on June 18 in state Supreme Court in Riverhead.