CHICAGO — A federal jury has convicted an Indiana man of
kidnapping a child from a Calumet City street as she walked home from school.
On Dec. 20, 2017, at approximately 3:30 p.m., BRYAN PROTHO
grabbed the child as she walked on a sidewalk in the south suburb. Protho forcibly dragged the victim into a red
Ford Explorer sport-utility vehicle and drove away. He then parked the vehicle in a nearby alley
and assaulted the child. The victim was
able to get out of the car and flag down a passing vehicle, and law enforcement
was contacted. The kidnapping was
captured on a residential surveillance system.
Protho was arrested on Dec. 27, 2017, and he has remained in
federal custody since then. During the
two-week trial in federal court in Chicago, the victim testified about her
ordeal and identified Protho has her abductor.
The jury on Monday convicted Protho, 41, of East Chicago,
Ind., on one count of kidnapping. The
conviction is punishable by a minimum sentence of 20 years in federal prison
and a maximum of life. U.S. District
Judge Andrea R. Wood did not immediately set a sentencing date. A status hearing was scheduled for March 5,
2020.
The Calumet City Police Department led the investigation,
with assistance from the FBI and the Lansing Police Department.
The sentence was announced by John R. Lausch, Jr., United
States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois; Christopher Fletcher,
Chief of the Calumet City Police Department; Emmerson Buie, Jr., Special
Agent-in-Charge of the Chicago office of the FBI; and Dennis Murrin, Jr., Chief
of the Lansing Police Department. The
officials thanked members of the community for providing valuable assistance in
the investigation.
The government is represented by Assistant U.S. Attorney
Christopher V. Parente and Kelly Guzman.
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