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Oct. 29, 2018 / 4:48 PM GMT
By David K. Li
A 66-year-old Connecticut man kidnapped his infant son from Canada more than 31 years ago and raised him in America using fake names, federal prosecutors said.
Allan Mann Jr., was arrested on Friday in Vernon, a suburb of Hartford, where he had been living as “Hailee Randolph DeSouza,” investigators said.
Mann, who held dual Canadian-Ghanaian citizenship, took his 21-month-old son Jermaine Allan Mann on June 24, 1987, during a court-ordered visit in Toronto, officials said.
After coming to the United States later that year, Mann used a fake birth certificate — purportedly from St. Joseph Hospital in Houston, claiming he was born in 1957, according to prosecutors. Jermaine also lived with a fake birth certificate, purportedly from Hermann Hospital in Houston.
Both Houston’s Health Department and Texas’ Health and Human Services Commission have confirmed those documents are phony, prosecutors said.
Federal officials declined to name the son or reveal where he currently lives. The mom has been notified that her son has been found.
Mann’s son had been told his mom died when he was young and didn’t know about the kidnapping until Friday, the Hartford Courant reported. The son, now 33, attended Mann’s initial appearance before a judge on Friday and left court without commenting.
“And since his son is a victim in this case, we can’t disclose any information about him,” Department of Justice spokesman Thomas Carson said on Monday.
Mann, who has been living in publically subsidized housing in Vernon since 2004, was charged with making false statements and making false statements to get HUD housing.
Since the alleged kidnapping, Mann had also has lived in the Bronx, New York, and Jamestown, North Carolina, according to a criminal complaint.
His next pre-trial hearing is set for Nov. 9.