Las Vegas Review-Journal (Sunday)
Suspect in student’s abduction faces four felony charges
Antwon Perkins, the former state corrections officer suspected of a Thursday abduction of a middle school student, is facing four felony charges, including sexual assault, court records show.
Perkins, who public employment records show worked at High Desert State Prison from 2015 to 2017, is charged with two counts of sexual assault against a child younger than 14 and one count each of battery with intent to commit a crime, lewdness with a child and first-degree kidnapping of a minor.
A criminal complaint was filed Friday in Las Vegas Justice Court, according to the same records.
The 35-year-old suspect was taken into custody about 9 p.m. Friday following a roughly three-hour standoff in North Las Vegas with Metropolitan Police Department officers and a SWAT team.
He was taken to University Medical Center after having surrendered for treatment of unspecified self-inflicted injuries, and was later booked in absentia into the Clark County Detention Center. A hospital spokesman said Saturday morning that Perkins was no longer listed as a patient in their system.
About 6 p.m. Friday, officers located Perkins on the 2600 block of Innovation Court, north of Lone Mountain Road, leading him to barricade himself inside a home, where a woman he knows lives.
After his arrest, Metro sex crimes bureau Lt. David Valenta said the victim, a student at Cadwallader Middle School, was doing as “best as you can be considering the traumatic incident we’re talking about.”
A man forced the child, who was walking past a convenience store on the corner of Farm and Cimarron roads, into a large, black pickup truck early Thursday, police said. The driver took the child to another location, where the assault took place, before the victim was dropped off near the same convenience store.
Using surveillance footage, detectives on Thursday linked Perkins to the involved truck, which was then located at McCarran International Airport, his current place of employment.
Police are working to determine whether Perkins is suspected of any other crimes. “This is a very brazen, violent crime,” Valenta said. “From my experience working sex crimes most people do not start out at this level. So we will absolutely be looking at that.”