Saturday, September 8, 2001
The Poland man pleaded innocent to the misdemeanor charges.
NILES -- Weathersfield police filed a felony charge of pandering sexually oriented matters involving a minor against a Poland man.
Randall K. Bryant, 26, Oak Drive, was arrested Thursday evening and charged with criminal child enticement, a misdemeanor. He was accused of enticing an 8-year-old boy into his car from the Suburban Mobile Home Park, where the boy lives, by offering to buy the boy a frog.
Police found the boy with Bryant in a vehicle at Belle Terre Avenue and Pheasant Run about an hour after the matter was reported. Niles police filed a misdemeanor drug abuse charge against Bryant, accusing him of possessing marijuana.
Pleaded innocent: Bryant pleaded innocent to the misdemeanor drug abuse and enticement charges Friday morning and Judge Thomas W. Townley of Niles Municipal Court set a $5,000 bond. Weathersfield Police Capt. Joe Consiglio said Bryant was charged with child enticement rather than abduction because there was apparently no force or threat used to get the boy into the car.
The felony pandering charge was filed Friday afternoon and Bryant remains in the Trumbull County Jail awaiting a court appearance on that charge. No information was available Friday on the details of the latest charge.
To appear in court: Bryant is expected to appear in court Monday morning.
The boy's mother said after Bryant's court appearance Friday morning that the police response was excellent. The Trumbull County Sheriff's office and Girard police also were involved in the effort to find the boy.
"It's the law that's the problem," the mother said. "If he could be charged with kidnapping or abduction, he would spend more time in jail so he couldn't go back out and do it to some other child."