CHILD PREDATOR BERNARD MUTTERPERL BACK ON THE STREET

hamilton · June 2007

June 19, 2007 -- The towering Brooklyn man who's accused of grabbing an 11-year-old girl after chatting her up inside the lobby of her building last month is free for the second time since his arrest, The Post has learned.
Bernard Mutterperl, 19, was released from Rikers Island Thursday afternoon after scores of supporters pitched in to pay $1 million in bail, Correction Department officials and his lawyer confirmed.
The news came as an unwelcome shock to the family of the girl, Xochil Garcia, who have now endured a series of roller coaster-like reversals.
"I had a pretty good Father's Day," said stepdad Heriberto Rodriguez. "But there it goes now, hearing this. Now to find out that he's been released. What's it going to take for this guy to stay in jail until the trial comes up?"
Mutterperl's release from jail last week came just nine days after Brooklyn Justice Patricia DiMango set the unusually high bail for the suspect, who allegedly admitted, "When I see young girls, I want to go after them."
Mutterperl's lawyer Leo Kimmel, admitted he was surprised the family raised the money so quickly.
"And I guess it was enough. He's not a flight risk," he said.

http://www.nypost.com/seven/06192007/news/regionalnews/girl_grab_suspect_out_again_regionalnews_sam_goldsmith_and_alex_ginsberg.htm

pitu · June 2007

innocent until proven guilty but damn
I hope he's not a flight risk.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime_file/2007/05/17/2007-05-17_who_let_suspect_free-1.html

Who let suspect free?
Girl deserves to know why man accused of abducting her is out on bail
By MICHAEL DALY
DAILY NEWS COLUMNIST

Posted Thursday, May 17th 2007, 4:00 AM

Xochil Garcia's back with mom Martha Hernandez but can't rest easy.

Eleven-year-old Xochil Garcia is sure to let somebody know if she spots the man charged with clamping a hand over her mouth and telling her not to scream as he attempted to abduct her.

But the rest of us have only a vague description of Bernard Mutterperl to warn us, should he start following another child now that he's free on bail.

As of yesterday, we had no picture to alert our kids. We could only tell them he is 19, stands 6-feet-2, weighs 220 pounds and has black hair and hazel eyes.

And as we warned them as best we can, we were left with trying to explain why Mutterperl is free.

How to explain that Judge John Wilson set a bail of only $25,000 cash or $75,000 bond because the charges were not much more serious than if Mutterperl was accused of grabbing an adult.

How to explain that Mutterperl would have faced an added felony had he endangered the welfare of a "vulnerable elderly person," but the additional charge of endangering the welfare of a child is only a misdemeanor on the order of jumping a subway turnstile?

Never mind that there is no telling what might have happened if Xochil (pronounced SO-shee) had not managed to break away from him when he allegedly tried to abduct her on Mother's Day. You can be almost certain that somebody who attempts that intends to do the child serious harm.

Xochil managed to escape with only a feeling of absolute terror she is not likely ever to forget. Mutterperl was grabbed by her oldest brother and some neighbors. The police took Mutterperl away and assured the sobbing, trembling girl that he was going to where he could not hurt her or anyone else.

Then her stepfather, Heriberto Rodriguez, got a call Tuesday night informing him that Mutterperl had posted $25,000 cash bail and walked out of Rikers Island at 1:52 p.m. Rodriguez was going to let Xochil's mother break it to her, but the little girl had been listening.

"I heard," Xochil said yesterday.

The news was so contrary to what she had expected, she was unsure how to react.

"I don't really know," she said.

She could sum up her feelings with a single word that was reflected in the shifting of her eyes and in the shifting of her weight from one foot to another.

"Nervous."

Her stepfather used the same word, which in his case was reflected by difficulty in sleeping and a loss of appetite. His edginess yesterday morning was magnified by the unsettling fact that he would not know Mutterperl if he walked right by him.

"I don't know what he looks like," he said yesterday.

He was standing outside their building in Midwood, Brooklyn, and he looked over to the steps where his Xochil was sitting.

"She does," he said.

The attack had come as she was returning from buying red-and-cream-colored nail polish as a Mother's Day gift. She now splayed her fingers.

"Look," she said.

Xochil and her mom had been determined not to let the incident spoil Mother's Day, and they had taken out the new polish as they waited in the stationhouse after the arrest. The girl's nails had tiny flowers and hearts painted on them.

"My mother, too," she said.

She had her 3-year-old brother, Remington, in her lap and he laughed as she counted his fingers aloud: "One ... two ... three ... four ... five."

She seemed like just another little girl, but her moxie with the would-be abductor had her put on the front page. She had been on two TV shows already that day, and her stepfather said she would be heading to another.

"In a limo?" she asked.

Not that she had dreams of stardom. She was very clear about what she wants when she grows up.

"A simple life," she said.

In the afternoon, the family met with the Brooklyn district attorney's office, which offered protection if they felt they needed it. The stepfather asked to see a photo of Mutterperl.

"And we showed him one," a spokesman said.

Which left every other parent in the city still wondering how to warn our kids and how to explain why this guy is out there.

[email protected]

hamilton · June 2007

I don't know how innocent he is....

From the Daily News:
Eleven-year-old Xochil Garcia kept herself ready for the worst, constantly rehearsing in her mind how she could escape an attacker or kidnapper.
Little did she know her hours of mental preparation would pay off - possibly saving the Brooklyn girl's life.
Last night, the 4-foot-5, 80-pound sixth-grader was hailed as a hero for fighting off an attacker twice her size - then having the wits about her to help capture the suspect.
"I always make my plan before there's a robbery or a kidnap[ping]," Xochil said from her Midwood home. "I think of a plan, like, if anybody kidnaps me, kick them back or scratch them - I'm growing my nails out. I went with Plan B."
Plan B meant yanking backward with all her might as Bernard Mutterperl, 19, allegedly grabbed her in her apartment stairwell Sunday, dragged her into the lobby and tried to take her to another set of stairs leading to the roof.
But Mutterperl, who stands 6-foot-2, had picked the wrong target.
"I always tell her, whatever happens, whatever these men do, don't go with them for anything," said mom Martha Hernandez. "Thank God she knows how to defend herself."
Xochil was heading home from the corner store with a new bottle of nail polish for her mom on Mother's Day.
The street-smart pixie spotted Mutterperl tailing her about a block from home and instinctively began to run for the door.
She recalled seeing him talking to her landlord before, she said, and wondered if she had misjudged him.
But after making it up two and a half flights of stairs in her building, Mutterperl grabbed her just short of her apartment, she said.
"He grabbed my mouth and told me to not scream. I thought he was going to take me up to the roof and rape me or something like that," Xochil said.
"When [we] went downstairs, he loosened my wrist a little bit. And I took advantage of that and I broke out of where he was holding me and I ran outside."
Mutterperl was arraigned last night in Brooklyn Criminal Court on charges of unlawful imprisonment, endangering the welfare of a child and burglary. Bail was set at $25,000 cash or $75,000 bond.
"I was really scared," Xochil said. "I never thought this would happen to me. But I calmed down so I could remember my plan."
She waited for Mutterperl's hand to go slack, then made a dash toward the building's front door. There, sobbing and shaking, she pressed all the buzzers in the building, summoning her 18-year-old brother, Angel Garcia, and several other concerned neighbors.
Meanwhile, Mutterperl scrambled to escape, trying the roof and the basement doors before stripping down to his white undershirt in an attempt to conceal his identity, witnesses said.
When he tried to sneak out the front door, the brave girl and her neighbors were waiting.
"My brother said, 'Is that him?' I said, 'Yes.' My brother said, 'Hold on a minute. You're not going anywhere.' Then that's when he took off," she recalled.
Neighbor Timothy Isaac, 25, Angel Garcia, and at least three others caught up to the suspect, bringing him down on the sidewalk across the street.
At first, Mutterperl, of Borough Park, Brooklyn, protested his innocence. But as they waited for cops to arrive, he changed his tune, saying, "I'm sorry, I won't do it again. I won't do it again," as the crowd pummeled him to keep him from escaping, Isaac said.
Xochil, who called for her attacker to get a stiff sentence, warned other kids to think safety first. "Try to figure out a plan before somebody tries to kidnap you. That way if somebody tries to touch you, you're ready to attack them back."

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime_file/2007/05/15/2007-05-15_captain_kid.html

hamilton · June 2009

Child Predator Bernard Mutterperl convicted of Mother's Day kidnap attempt

A Brooklyn jury convicted a Brooklyn man of trying to abduct an 11-year-old girl on Mother's Day two years ago - rejecting the argument he was just strange, not sinister.
Bernard Mutterperl, 21, grabbed the girl's hand, put his hand over her mouth when she screamed, and walked her down the stairs of her Midwood apartment building.
His lawyer told jurors that Mutterperl's actions were inappropriate and awkward not criminal.
But jurors who heard the girl's vivid testimony and Mutterperl's police statement about liking little girls took only three hours to convict him Friday.
"If the first thing you do when you see a child is grab her hand and say 'Don't scream,' that's a little more than inappropriate," said one juror, a 24-year-old woman from Williamsburg.
The strongest evidence against Mutterperl was his statement and the testimony of Xochil Garcia, now 13, who kept her cool and waited for the right moment to escape his grasp.
She bravely took the stand to tell jurors about what Assistant District Attorney Jacqueline Kagen called "every parent's worst nightmare."
Mutterperl - who was convicted of attempted kidnapping, unlawful imprisonment and other charges - grimaced when the verdict was read.
His mother burst into tears.
"Travesty of justice, travesty of justice," defense lawyer Joyce David said.
"There was no evidence here, just speculation. She never said anything about his taking her anywhere."
Mutterperl now faces up to 15 years in prison.
He had been free on $1 million bail, but the judge has now ordered him without bail.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2009/06/19/2009-06-19_brooklyn_man_.html#ixzz0IvLl97OQ&C

brooklynchimp · June 2009

Justice.

Thank you for following up.

brooklynjack · September 2009

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/regional/brooklyn/brooklyn_perv_gets_years_for_attempted_ZrMJeYUfx1HMpkxHSaX3bP

CHILD PREDATOR BERNARD MUTTERPERL BACK ON THE STREET

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