SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Craig Ross Jr., the 46-year-old New York man accused of kidnapping a 9-year-old girl off a bicycle trail at a state park near Lake George, was arraigned on first-degree kidnapping charges around 3 a.m. Tuesday, according to jail records.
Gov. Kathy Hochul said during a late-night news briefing Monday that the suspect had been identified after allegedly leaving his fingerprints on a ransom note that state police witnessed him stuffing into Charlotte Sena’s mailbox around 4:20 a.m. Monday.
Jail records show he was booked into the Saratoga County Jail in Ballston Spa, New York, around 3:40 a.m Tuesday.
Ross was arraigned in the early morning hours in an emergency hearing before Justice Tim Brown at the Milton Town Court on a kidnapping charge, according to court documents obtained by Fox News Digital.
“The defendant did abduct [the victim] and wrote a ransom letter with the intent to compel the payment of a ransom for her,” state police wrote in a felony complaint.
He was being held without bail on a single charge of first-degree kidnapping, New York State Police said Tuesday morning.
State and federal tactical teams on Monday evening stormed a camper behind his mother’s double-wide trailer in Milton, just outside Saratoga Springs.
“Within the camper, they located the suspect,”: Hochul said during a Friday evening news briefing in Latham. “After some resistance, the suspect was taken into custody, and immediately the little girl was found in a cabinet, covered. She was rescued.”
Charlotte was taken to a local hospital, where she reunited with her family, Hochul said.
Ross was still being questioned when the governor spoke around 11 p.m. Monday, she said, and court documents were not immediately available before business hours Tuesday.
A 1999 drunken driving charge allowed police to find Ross’ fingerprints in a law enforcement database, Hochul said. They allegedly found the prints on the ransom note after state police standing guard near the family home witnessed him drop an item in the mailbox.
Local reports also revealed he had been charged with misdemeanor “obstruction of breathing” in April 2017, according to the Saratogian newspaper.
“We are just elated she came home,” Jene Sena, Charlotte’s aunt, told Fox News Digital Monday evening after the arrest.
