SCRANTON, LACKAWANNA CO. (WOLF) \u2014 A Scranton man accused of taking his 6-year-old son to Puerto Rico in violation of a custody order has been located and taken into custody, according to the Lackawanna County District Attorney’s Office.<\/p>\n
District Attorney Brian Gallagher announced Wednesday that Frank Nellom was apprehended in Puerto Rico following a multi-agency investigation into the child’s disappearance.<\/p>\n
Authorities said the child was found safe and is currently in the care of Puerto Rico’s Administration for Families and Children while arrangements are made to reunite him with his mother and return him to Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n
According to court documents, the child’s mother has sole legal and physical custody of the boy under a Lackawanna County court order. Investigators allege Nellom took the child from Scranton on May 29 and traveled to Puerto Rico without the mother’s permission.<\/p>\n
The investigation began after the child was not returned following what authorities described as an agreed-upon visitation period. Court records state the mother contacted police after Nellom allegedly failed to return the child and stopped communicating with her regarding the child’s whereabouts.<\/p>\n
Investigators said the mother later received a text message from Nellom that included a photograph of the child and indicated they were in Puerto Rico.<\/p>\n
Nellom was charged June 4 with interference with custody of children and concealment of the whereabouts of a child, both third-degree felonies, according to a criminal complaint filed by the Lackawanna County District Attorney’s Office.<\/p>\n
Gallagher credited the Lackawanna County District Attorney’s Office, county detectives, the U.S. Marshals Service, the Lackawanna County Office of Youth and Family Services, Puerto Rico’s Administration for Families and Children, and law enforcement agencies in Puerto Rico for locating the child and apprehending Nellom.<\/p>\n
“Our primary concern from the very beginning was the safety and well-being of this child,” Gallagher said in a statement.<\/p>\n
The district attorney’s office said additional charges are expected as the investigation continues.<\/p>\n
Nellom remains in custody in Puerto Rico pending further proceedings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SCRANTON, LACKAWANNA CO. (WOLF) \u2014 A Scranton man accused of taking his 6-year-old son to Puerto Rico in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":215788,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[178,180,179],"class_list":["post-215787","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-scranton","tag-scranton","tag-scranton-headlines","tag-scranton-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215787","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=215787"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215787\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/215788"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=215787"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=215787"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=215787"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}