You are reading

St. Albans man charged with kidnapping for abducting a child from a Long Island City school: DA

St. Albans resident Naquan Aiken was arrested and arraigned in Queens Criminal Court for kidnapping a 7-year-old boy from a Long Island City school and violating the terms of an order of protection. Photo courtesy of the NYPD

June 13, 2024 By Bill Parry

A Southeast Queens man was criminally charged with kidnapping and other crimes for allegedly abducting a 7-year-old boy from a Long Island City school late last month and sending a stream of threatening messages to the youngster’s mother as soon as police from the 114th Precinct rushed to the scene.

Naquan Aiken, 37, of 118th Avenue in St. Albans, was arrested and booked at the 114th Precinct in Astoria on June 3 and arraigned in Queens Criminal Court on Friday, June 7. Aiken is accused of grabbing the boy in front of P.S. 111Q Jacob Blackwell School, located at 37-15 13th St., at 2:50 p.m. on Thursday, May 30.

In addition to the kidnapping charge, Aiken was also hit with first-degree criminal contempt for threatening to shoot the mother, his ex-girlfriend, for calling the NYPD as soon as she learned her son was missing, according to the criminal complaint. In the ominous messages, Aiken referred to the 7-year-old boy as his own son in the first of many text messages he sent to the mother.

“All this because I picked up my son. Now it’s going to get worse,” Aiken texted. “U went to far now I gotta make a call on you. Ya son in the library. All I did was pick him up. Bitch UR gonna get violated.” The message was followed with racial epithets and multiple threats of violence, according to the criminal complaint.

Aiken is accused of taking the youngster from the school without permission or authority to do so, and even though Aiken dropped the child off at the Queens Public Library branch around the corner at 37-44 21st St. ten minutes later, he violated an order of protection that was issued on behalf of the mother on April 28. The mother sought protection after Aiken “caused her to suffer fear of imminent physical injury, annoyance and alarm.”

That order of protection, issued by Queens Criminal Court Judge Julietta Lozano, is valid until April 27, 2025, and states that Aiken “is to stay away from the home, school, business, place of employment of the complainant, must stay 100 yards away from the complaint, must not enter into the home even if invited in, refrain from any communication or contact by mail, telephone, e-mail, voice-mail or other means” with the woman.

For violating a “duly served order of protection,” Aiken was hit with two counts of first-degree criminal contempt at his arraignment in addition to kidnapping in the second degree.