Jeremy McCown was sentenced to six months in prison.
AUBURN – A Lewiston man charged with kidnapping a 13-year-old girl and attempting to lure other girls to his car was sentenced Monday to six months in jail.
Jeremy McCown, 22, was originally charged with one count of kidnapping, one count of criminal restraint and three counts of assault in connection with allegations that he was driving around Lewiston Middle School in late August while attempting to get female students in his car.
The state agreed to dismiss the kidnapping charge, the most serious of the five charges, and one of the assault charges as part of a plea agreement. McCown appeared in Androscoggin County Superior Court Monday afternoon and pleaded guilty to the other counts.
Justice Ellen Gorman sentenced him to 364 days in jail for each charge, but she suspended all but six months of that time.
McCown’s sentence will be followed by three years of probation, during which he will be barred from being on the property of any elementary, middle or high school.
A Lewiston High School graduate, McCown was arrested Aug. 29 after police identified him as the man who stopped a 13-year-old girl on her way to school, lured her to his window and yanked her into his car.
He was accused of fondling the girl and making sexual comments to her as he drove around the neighborhood.
Police received reports on the morning before McCown was arrested that a man in a green car had been stopping students on their way to the middle school. Police were sent to the Central Avenue area in marked and unmarked cars, and one officer recognized McCown driving around.
The officer was taking statements from two girls who were approached the day earlier, when the assistant principal came to him with a third student.
That girl told the officer that she had just been walking on Pine Street when a green car drove by, took a left on Jefferson Street, then turned around and stopped. The girl said she could not hear what the man was saying because his window was rolled up, so she opened his car door and asked what he wanted.
McCown allegedly grabbed the girl by the arm and pulled her into the car, ripping her sleeve. Then, police said, he attempted to push her legs apart while asking graphic questions before dropping her off near the school.
The girl gave police a description of the man, and McCown was arrested at his workplace later that day.
lchmelecki@sunjournal.com
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