A man stopped at the Canadian border for lack of a Covid-19 test has been accused of kidnapping a 16-year-old girl from Connecticut, sexually assaulting her and trying to sneak her across the border.
Christopher Constanzo, 19, of Connecticut made an initial court appearance Friday on the federal kidnapping charge. Constanzo appeared at the hearing in federal court in Burlington by video from the Northwest State Correctional Facility in St. Albans.
Magistrate Judge Kevin Doyle agreed to a request from Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew Lasher to hold Constanzo in custody until a hearing next week. Attorney Sara Puls, a federal public defender representing Constanzo, did not object to the prosecutor’s request.
According to an affidavit filed in court by Chris Herzog, a special agent with federal Homeland Security Investigations, Constanzo tried to enter Canada Thursday morning through a border crossing at Highgate Springs in Vermont, driving the kidnapped girl’s Toyota Camry, which he had stolen, and with the girl in the back seat of the car, tied up with shoelaces.
After Canadian officials refused to let Constanzo cross because he had no proof of a Covid-19 test, U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents said they separated Constanzo and the teenager as they further investigated.
Herzog wrote in the affidavit that the teenager reported that Costanzo had kidnapped her and sexually assaulted her. Agents also learned that her parents had reported she was missing a day earlier in Connecticut, the affidavit stated.
The teen reported that Constanzo had restrained her with shoelaces and placed her in the vehicle’s trunk from about 9 p.m. Wednesday to 4 a.m. Thursday, Herzog wrote in the affidavit.
On Thursday morning, the teen told agents, Constanzo took her out of the trunk and sexually assaulted her. Then, the teen reported, he put her in the back seat of the vehicle, still restrained with shoelaces, as they approached the border crossing.
The teen said that Constanzo told her to “act normal” and “go along with the story” as Constanzo told Canadian border agents that the teen was his sister and they were heading into that country for a four-day visit with friends, Herzog wrote in the affidavit.
“Due to lack of Covid tests, however, they were denied entry into Canada and were turned around to reenter the United States,” the affidavit stated.
Constanzo also is accused of keeping the teen from accessing her cellphone while using it himself to send messages impersonating her.
Herzog wrote in the affidavit that a search of the vehicle revealed a shoe missing a shoelace, a single shoelace on the back seat and strands of the teen’s hair in the trunk.
Lasher, the prosecutor, told the court that Constanzo is currently the suspect in an ongoing sexual assault investigation from July 21. Also, the prosecutor wrote, Constanzo was aware that authorities in Connecticut had obtained a warrant on Nov. 22 to search an electronic device in connection with that investigation.
“Accordingly, the circumstances suggest the defendant may have been fleeing the jurisdiction — and even the country — to avoid potential consequences,” Lasher wrote.
Vermont State Police, who are assisting in the investigation, ask that people to contact them if they saw “something out of the ordinary” at the Champlain Farms or Maplefields convenience stores at Interstate 89 Exit 16 in Colchester between 3 a.m. and 7 a.m. Thursday.
State police, in a release Friday afternoon, said the 2007 green Toyota Camry with Connecticut plates AB 76423 stopped at a convenience store, believed to be the Maplefields at Exit 16, at which point Costanzo moved the teen from the trunk to the back seat of the vehicle.
A Maplefields store surveillance image shows a man believed to be Constanzo at the store’s counter at about 3:40 a.m. Thursday, officials said in the release.
