KIDNAP SUIT: CITY HIRED A PERVERT FOR PLAYGROUND

PFMLIT CITY EMPLOYEE, General, SEX OFFENDERS AND OTHERS IN POSITIONS OF TRUST, SEX OFFENDERS AND OTHERS WHO REOFFEND, SEX OFFENDERS WHO REOFFEND

Tony Sanchez, a 40-year-old registered sex offender, was assigned to work in the playground where he was charged with kidnapping a Manhattan couple's 4 year old.  The couple filed a $75 million suit against the city yesterday.  Sanchez is accused of snatching the couple's son, Stephen Johnson, from the Chelsea Park playground on October 23.  He took the boy to his Bronx apartment overnight and then abandoned him in a subway station.  He was later charged with kidnapping and endangering the welfare of a minor.  He had been charged with sex abuse and sodomy in cases involving a 5 year old and 7 year old in the Bronx in 1994.  He was given five years probation in a plea bargain.  He was arrested again shortly before his probation ended for propositioning a 12-year-old girl in the Bronx.  A problem with paperwork let him back out on the street on $500 bail.  

(New York)