Erie police said a city man told them he made a motion to a 13-year-old girl from the van he was driving when he saw the girl in the 1200 block of Liberty Street on Wednesday afternoon.
The girl told police the man grabbed her arm and tried to pull her into the van.
The man, identified in court records as Harry Rodriguez Felix, 33, was taken into police custody on Saturday night and was later arraigned by Erie 3rd Ward District Judge Alison Scarpitti on a first-degree misdemeanor count of luring a child into a motor vehicle in the incident, which happened on Wednesday at about 12:45 p.m.
Erie police accuse Rodriguez Felix of attempting to abduct the girl as she was walking home from school. Police reported the incident on Friday morning and asked for the public’s help in identifying the then-unknown suspect and the white van he was seen driving.
The detective who charged Rodriguez Felix wrote in his criminal complaint that the girl told police she was walking in the 1200 block of Liberty Street when a white van pulled up and the driver grabbed her arm and tried to pull her into the van. The girl said she kicked the man and ran away, and the man drove off, according to information in the complaint.