Man sentenced to 34 months in prison for child abduction attempt in Planeview last year
The man charged with trying to abduct a 12-year-old girl walking alone in the Planeview neighborhood on a Saturday afternoon last May will serve 34 months in prison, a judge has ruled.
Victor M. Lara-Aguilar was sentenced Wednesday, Sedgwick County District Court records show. The 29-year-old pleaded guilty on Sept. 1 to one count of robbery, a felony, and one count of misdemeanor criminal restraint in connection with the May 9, 2020, kidnapping attempt in the area of 31st South and Clifton, in southeast Wichita.
Authorities have said a stranger later identified as Lara-Aguilar grabbed the girl’s right arm and pulled on her while she was outside looking for her missing cellphone near her grandmother’s house. The girl noticed the phone was gone while she walked her dog and was retracing her steps when Lara-Aguilar approached her, according to his arrest affidavit.
Police say the girl screamed, yanked her arm away from Lara-Aguilar’s grasp and ran to her grandmother’s house. Her mother called 911.
Officers found Lara-Aguilar and the girl’s cellphone in the grass in the same area where she reported the abduction attempt.
When he was arrested, police found methamphetamine in his pocket, which he admitted to using along with marijuana and alcohol before the girl was grabbed, his arrest affidavit says.
Lara-Aguilar’s lawyer, in a written motion taken up Wednesday before the prison term was announced, argued that a sentence of no more than six months behind bars or probation would not only “serve community safety interests” but let his client participate in a community-based treatment program that “is likely to be more effective” than lock up.
But Judge Jeff Syrios disagreed, writing on a document filed with the court that there was “no substantial and compelling basis” to grant the request.
Lara-Aguilar has been in jail since his May 2020 arrest. The abduction attempt scared the girl, but she wasn’t physically harmed, police have said.
This story was originally published November 24, 2021 at 3:42 PM.
