An 81-year-old ice cream vendor in southwest Denver has been charged with enticing and trying to kidnap and sexually assault a 10-year-old girl on her way home from school.
Denver District Attorney Mitch Morrissey formally filed the charges against Salvador Galdamez, who is now jailed with bond set at $10,000.
He’s scheduled to appear in court Thursday to be advised of the felony charges.
Galdamez allegedly offered the girl, who was on her way home from College View Elementary School last week, free ice cream from his push-cart. She refused.
He grabbed her and said, “Te voy a robar,” (“I am going to rob you”), according to a probable cause statement filed in Denver County Court. The girl wriggled free and went to her grandmother’s house nearby. He followed her, “asked her to be his girlfriend” and “leaned in close to her and asked for a kiss,” the statement said.
Denver Police arrested Galdamez the next day at 2701 S. Decatur St. after school when the girl spotted him with his cart, ran into the school and notified the principal, district attorney spokeswoman Lynn Kimbrough said.
“There’s great concern if we have people preying on children on the way home from school,” Kimbrough said. The girl “is to be commended for her quick thinking and her willingness to go to the principal and tell him what happened.”
