A registered sex offender has been arrested and charged with multiple kidnapping counts, according to Boston police.
Charles Horton, 42, is accused of kidnapping and manipulating at least one kid through Facebook after a young man and his mother contacted police about an incident on April 14.
The boy told police Horton had added him as a friend on Facebook and then began messaging him, demanding that he remove certain people from his friend list.
When the boy began ignoring him, he said Horton threatened him. Horton allegedly told the victim he knew where he lived and he would hurt him and his relatives. Police say Horton had the boy meet him at a restaurant across the street from Franklin Park in Roxbury.
Horton allegedly threatened the boy with a gun before he was spooked by a passing police car and ran away.
Police say they connected this incident to similar incidents on January 2, 2020 and October 28, 2019.
Police say the boy’s description led them to Charles Horton, a registered sex offender they say had changed his name to Charlese Horton while living in Dorchester. Charles “Ebony” Horton, as the accused was known at 22 years old in 2000, was was sentenced to home incarceration for luring a 12-year-old boy into his car, holding a screwdriver to his neck and demanding oral sex.
Prosecutors at the time had asked for eight to 10 years in prison. Judge Maria Lopez was criticized for her decision, alongside similar decisions with regards to three other men charged with sex crimes at the time. She called Horton’s crime “low level.”
Officers located and followed Horton from his home.
When officers pulled over Horton on a traffic stop, they saw a green shopping back in his back seat and detained him. According to police, the man used a gun pulled from a similarly described green shopping bag in all three incidents.
He has been charged with kidnapping and assault with a deadly weapon.
In 2000, the Associated Press described Horton as a transsexual male, but did not specify details of his or her transition. Horton has been described as a male in the BPD’s latest news release.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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