Attempted kidnapping charges have been dropped against a Santa Ana man who was accused of trying to snatch a then-15-year-old girl walking to school in 2013, and his attorney is now seeking a finding of factual innocence to clear the man's name and record.
Moises Rendon Held for Bizarre Kidnap Try on 15 y.o. Girl, But What About His Accomplice?
Our original report described a bizarre and frightening crime. The girl was walking to Santa Ana Valley High School the morning of April 24, 2013—a Wednesday—when a stranger wearing gloves and holding a rag popped out of a red Toyota Corolla, ran toward her and tried to grab her. She escaped his grasp and run away to safety, and the would-be napper got into the passenger seat of the Toyota, which a second man drove away.
Witnesses called Santa Ana police, who were given a possible address for the stranger in the 1400 block of South Sullivan Street, which is just two blocks from the point of the attempted abduction. Rendon was picked up and shown to the girl, who positively identified him as the creeper, according to police, who never could find the second guy.
It sounded like an open-and-shut case. But just before 29-year-old Rendon's trial was to start, his attorney convinced prosecutors that his client had an air-tight alibi that could not put him at the location of the attempted kidnapping. The charges were then dropped, City News Service reports.
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OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.