MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) — A 33-year-old man has been charged with kidnapping and first-degree burglary after police say he forcefully abducted his 2-year-old son and assaulted the boy’s mother in the process.
Officers were dispatched to a home early Sunday on the 3300 block of Virginia Avenue South in St. Louis Park, Minn. on a report of a possible kidnapping. Upon arrival, they met the boy’s mother, Kyesha Lewis, who was extremely upset and sobbing as she told officers “he took my son.”
According to a criminal complaint, Lewis and Marque Montez Charleston have a 2-year-old boy together but she has sole custody of him. She said they separated two weeks ago, and since then, Charleston had been staying at hotels around the area.
On Feb. 15, Lewis went to visit Charleston at the hotel he was staying at and they got into an argument, according to the charges. She said he kicked her out of the hotel and then called her repeatedly. She told police she didn’t answer her phone and went to bed around 9 p.m.
Around 1 a.m. Sunday, she said she woke up to pounding on the windows and Charleston yelling for her to let him in the home. She then heard a loud band as Charleston broke the door open and forced his way in.
Lewis said she tried to stop him from entering the bedroom, where she and the 2-year-old boy, Marque Montez Charleston, Jr., were sleeping but he made his way in and struck her numerous times in the face, according to the complaint.
When she tried to call 911, she said Charleston broke the phone. According to the complaint, Charleston struck her again after seeing the boy’s haircut.
The charges state Charleston then picked up the boy, forced his way past Lewis, put him in his car and drove away. He told her they were going to Florida and that she would never see her son again.
Charleston was eventually arrested in Wisconsin, during a traffic stop. The boy was found sleeping in the back of the vehicle and reunited with his mother.
Charleston is a Lieutenant of the Minnesota Army National Guard and has been a member since January 1998.
If convicted, Charleston could face up to 40 years in prison and/or up to $70,000 in fines.
