BANGOR, Maine — A 19-year-old Bangor man faces possible kidnapping charges after taking a 13-year-old New York girl he met through the Internet across several state lines for sexual purposes.

Charles Dunlop was arrested on April 29 on a federal charge of transporting a minor across state lines for sexual purposes, three days after the girl’s mother reported her missing from her home in Niagara County, N.Y., according to documents filed with the U.S. District Court for the Western District of New York.

A charge of first-degree kidnapping is pending in New York, Niagara County Sheriff James Voutour told the Niagara Gazette newspaper in an online article on May 20.

“Deplorable acts such as these, which are perpetrated against our youth, will not be tolerated,” Voutour told the Niagara Gazette.

As of Tuesday, Dunlop remained in federal custody. He made his initial court appearance in U.S. District Court in Buffalo on May 19. A detention hearing was held May 22 but was continued to June 6 to allow the parties involved additional time to look into the possibility of suitable residence and bail should he be released pending trial.

Authorities say that Dunlop met the girl, whose name is being withheld because of her age, through the social networking site MySpace about six months ago, according to an affidavit filed by an FBI agent assigned to the bureau’s Buffalo, N.Y., field office.

After Dunlop picked the girl up in his work vehicle at her home in Niagara County, N.Y., on April 25, the two traveled to Cleveland and then to Millcreek Township, a suburb of Erie, Pa., where Dunlop reportedly left her at the Millcreek Mall on April 28 and fled. Dunlop was located a day later in Ohio, according to the affidavit. The court document does not specify what the work vehicle was or whom Dunlop works for.

Investigators say they have found evidence that the two stayed at various hotels in the Cleveland area from April 25 until Dunlop left her at the mall in Pennsylvania on April 28.

Though the minor denied having sex with Dunlop, investigators observed what appeared to be several hickeys on her neck, according to the affidavit.

Police also indicated in the court document that the girl claimed Dunlap knew she was 13. She also told police that Dunlop kept her laptop computer when he dropped her off because it had his “profiles on it,” and that he reformatted the hard drive on the computer after he first picked her up.

When FBI agents caught up with Dunlop, he admitted to driving from Cleveland to New York to pick up the girl. He said the girl told him she was 18 and that he’d had unprotected sex approximately five times before he dropped her off.
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