SELDEN MAN INDICTED ON KIDNAP CHARGE (Faces decades in prison if guilty of abducting and molesting teen girl at gunpoint)

Justin Bacher, a 27 year old Selden man with a history of arrests, attempted to rob four teenagers in Miller Place and sexually molested the youngest on August 1.  Bacher, of College Road, was arraigned on several charges and is being held in the county jail outside Riverhead.  The teenagers - two 15 year old boys and two girl, one 15 and one 14 - were walking along Lower Rocky Point Road in Miller Place near the Andrew Muller Primary School at about 8:40 p.m. when Bacher confronted them.  He walked past the group and came up behind them, ordering them to stop.  He pulled what appeared to be a rifle or shotgun from a box and demanded money from the teens.  When they said they had no money, Bacher ordered the three older children to stay where they were while he forced the 14 year old girl into nearby woods and inappropriately touched her.

On August 16, Bacher was indicted on a series of charges stronger than what he initially faced.  A grand jury indicted him on one count of second-degree kidnapping, four counts of first-degree attempted robbery, two counts of first-degree sex abuse and one count of endangering the welfare of a child.  He also is charged with two counts of possession of stolen property.  First-degree unlawful imprisonment is a class E felony punishable by up to four years in prison and defined as restraining another person under circumstances which expose the latter to a risk of serious physical injury.  Second-degree kidnapping is a class B violent felony punishable by up to 25 years in prison, with mandatory parole of two to five more years.  It is defined simply as abducting another person.  He also faces two unrelated charges in Southampton, second-degree harassment and second-degree obstruction of governmental administration.

(New York)