The man accused of kidnapping a 9-year-old girl last year from a New York state park pleaded guilty on Wednesday to kidnapping and predatory sexual assault against a child, agreeing to a prison term of 47 years to life.
Craig N. Ross Jr. will be formally sentenced on April 17, the Albany Times-Union reported. The sentencing includes 25 years to life on the kidnapping charge and 22 years to life on the child rape charge, to be served consecutively.
“He will be 93 years old when he’s even eligible to talk about parole consideration,” Saratoga County District Attorney Karen Heggen told reporters after the hearing.
As CrimeOnline previously reported, Ross was accused of snatching the 9-year-old girl off her bicycle on September 30, 2023, as she rode around a campground at Moreau Lake State Park, kicking off an intensive search. Investigators got a major break a day later when Ross dropped a ransom note off at the girl’s home.
A state trooper guarding the home saw Ross drop the ransom note into the family’s mailbox, but by the time he had checked and learned its content, Ross had driven away in his pickup truck. But a fingerprint on the note matched a fingerprint taken when Ross was arrested for a DUI in 1999.
He was arrested in a trailer on his mother’s property on October 2 — and the young girl was found stuffed into a cabinet in the trailer.
He was indicted on nine counts, including one that used the word “rape,” in November. Had he not accepted the plea deal, his trial was scheduled to begin on April 4.
The plea deal includes no mention of two abductions and murders in the area in the early 2000s. He was never identified as a suspect in those two killings, and he reportedly rejected prosecutors’ attempts to get him to leverage the plea agreement in return for information about those two unsolved cases.
Law enforcement said last year that they had no evidence whatsoever that linked Ross to those two cases, beyond his long-time residence in the area.
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[Featured image: FILE – Craig Ross at his November 2023 arraignment. Will Waldron/The Albany Times-Union via AP, file]
