A kidnapping suspect arrested last week at the Vermont border with Canada will be facing the criminal charge against him in federal court in Connecticut where authorities say the crime originated.
Authorities had leveled a federal charge of kidnapping to commit a sexual assault last week against Christopher Constanzo, 19, of Hartford, Connecticut.
However, during a video hearing Tuesday in federal court in Burlington, Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew Lasher told Magistrate Judge Kevin Doyle they would be dropping that charge as his federal counterparts in Connecticut have filed a similar charge in that jurisdiction.
“I’ll be filing a written motion to dismiss,” Lasher told the judge. “The United States intends to proceed with the prosecution in the district of Connecticut.”
Constanzo took part in the hearing Tuesday by video from a room at the Northwest State Correctional Center in St. Albans, where he has been held since his arrest last week. He did not contest returning to Connecticut to face the federal kidnapping charge against him there.
The court proceeding Tuesday had been set as a detention hearing to determine if Constanzo would stay in custody while the case against him remains pending. That part of the hearing was nixed Tuesday as Constanzo, through Steven Barth, a federal public defender representing him, did not challenge the continued incarceration as he heads to Connecticut.
Constanzo was arrested Thursday morning as he tried to enter Canada through the border crossing at Highgate Springs in Vermont with a 16-year-old girl in his vehicle, according to court filings.
Because both Constanzo and the girl did not have proof of vaccination against Covid-19, filings stated, they were denied entry into that country.
As a result, charging documents stated, Constanzo and the girl had to go back through the process of entering the United States, where border agents processing them questioned them separately.
That’s when the girl, according to the charging documents, reported that she had been kidnapped and sexually assaulted by Constanzo.
The girl told authorities that she had met Constanzo through a mutual friend, and that he sexaully assaulted her, placed her in the vehicle’s trunk last Wednesday night and tied her hands with one of her shoelaces.
Prior to attempting to cross the border, the filings stated, Constanzo took the girl out of the trunk and placed her in the backseat and told her to “act normal” as they approached the Highgate Springs port of entry.
According to flings by prosecutors, Constanzo is under investigation in Connecticut for sexual assault against another girl.
