Police said that even after authorities warned a 24-year-old Brownsville man to stay away from a 14-year-old boy, the man continued to reach out to the teenager, which eventually led to his arrest.
Andre Franco was arrested Thursday on one count of stalking, but this wasn’t his first arrest related to the teenage boy, Brownsville police said. He has also been charged with phone harassment, criminal trespass and harboring a runaway and enticing a child, authorities said.
Franco remained jailed Friday at a Cameron County jail on a $25,000 bond on the stalking charge. His bonds were revoked on the other charges, Investigator Martin Sandoval, spokesman for the Brownsville Police Department, said Friday.
“I don’t know why he was so infatuated with this minor. After the judge told him he needed to stay away and everything, he still decided that he wanted to be part of it,” Sandoval said.
Franco’s encounters with the 14-year-old boy began in the early morning hours of July 31, 2022, when he messaged the teenager and persuaded him to run away from home, Sandoval said. Franco provided the teenager with instructions on how to get out of the house and met him at a window, police said. He also told the teenage boy to leave a note to his parents telling them he didn’t want to be at home, according to police.
Franco and the teenager ended up at a friend’s house in the downtown area and the friend became concerned and started to ask questions, Sandoval said. Franco and the boy left that house and went to a nearby church where the pastor recognized the teenager and called the police, officials said.
According to Sandoval, the pastor knew the teen and his parents and knew the boy was a runaway. Brownsville police went to the church and arrested Franco on a charge of harboring a runaway and enticing a child.
Officers found a bag of clothing that belonged to the minor and a Tae Kwon Doe bag that belonged to Franco, who said claimed to be a Tae Kwon Doe instructor, police said.
Nineteen days later on Aug. 19, Franco went back to the boy’s home, making his way into the backyard, police said. Police were sent to the area and arrested him on a criminal trespass charge, Sandoval said. The boy’s parents told police Franco was “trying to make contact” with their son, officials said.
On Aug. 21, Franco continued to try to contact the teenage boy messaging him through social media, police said. The teenager told him to leave him and his family alone, but this didn’t stop Franco, Sandoval said. He continued to message the boy and told him once he was 18, it would get better, police said.
The boy told his parents and police arrested Franco on a phone harassment charge, and he was told to stop messaging the boy, Sandoval said.
On Thursday, Aug. 25, the police department’s Special Victims Unit issued a warrant for Franco that charged him with stalking. He had been in custody at the Carrizales-Rucker Detention Center on the previous charges.
Sandoval said this wasn’t the first time Franco had been after a minor boy. There were two prior cases involving male juveniles that he had been connected to, he said. He said that in the first case the parents managed to stop everything that was going on because of the messages so there wasn’t anything documented, but in the second case Franco had been charged with an unwanted touch.
Police, after obtaining warrants, will search Franco’s cellphone and social media accounts for messages or pornographic photos, according to authorities. “If we do find any images or anything like that of minors, of course we are going to up the charges,” Sandoval said.
Authorities said the investigation continues.
“He tells these kids he’s a Ninja because he was two years in Japan,” Sandoval said. He said police couldn’t find any Tae Kwon Doe licenses for Franco.
