A Brooklyn man was sentenced Tuesday to life in prison after pleading guilty to kidnapping and sex crime charges in the 2022 abduction of his ex-girlfriend’s 13-year-old daughter from her Pennsylvania home.
Duane Taylor, 50, entered the Reading, Pa. home of his ex-girlfriend in the early hours of Aug. 31, 2022, abducted the girl, and took her to his Brooklyn apartment, prosecutors said.
The victim’s mother told investigators that she had last seen her daughter around 10:30 p.m. before going to bed. When she woke up on the morning of Aug. 31, she realized the back door of the home was wide open. Police also found that the door’s chain lock was broken.
“Imagine one morning finding your home’s door broken open and your child’s bed empty,” Jacqueline Maguire, then-special agent in charge of the FBI’s Philadelphia Division, said at the time, calling the incident “a parent’s worst nightmare come true.”
Reading investigators contacted the New York City Police Department, who traced Taylor to his Brooklyn home but did not find the girl there, prosecutors said.
She was located later that day after a person called 911 to report that a child was asking for help, saying she had been kidnapped from Pennsylvania.
Taylor was later charged with kidnapping, travel with intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct, production of child pornography, possession of child pornography and transportation of child pornography.
He pleaded guilty to all counts on June 5, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania David Metcalf said.
On Tuesday, he was sentenced to life in prison and ordered to pay $3,000 in restitution and $3,500 in fines and assessments, the Reading Eagle reported.