A creep tried to abduct a 9-year-old boy from a Brooklyn synagogue Wednesday — but was thwarted when the kid’s mom showed up and saw him trying to carry her son away, police said.
The boy was attending a bris for a family member at the Hesed Le Avraham Synagogue on East 7th Street in Gravesend shortly after 9 a.m. when a man who had been praying inside approached him, cops and the congregation’s rabbi said.
The stranger asked the child to go outside with him — and when the kid refused, he picked him up by the shoulders and tried to carry him out through the front door, according to police.
The alleged attempted kidnapper is taken into custody by police. Paul MartinkaThe mother spotted the creep carrying her son and jumped in — asking the boy if he knew the man from the synagogue, cops said.
When he told her no, she ripped her son from the man’s arms, police said.
The suspect then ran off — hiding in a nearby yeshiva, according to law enforcement sources.
Cops had K9s out in Brooklyn hunting for the man, who possibly suffers from a type of mental illness, according to the sources.
Yossi Mayer, 42, was taken into custody about an hour later and subsequently charged with kidnapping, endangering the welfare of a child, and harassment.
At his arraignment, prosecutors downgraded the charges to unlawful imprisonment and endangering the welfare of a child and a judge released him with a future court date, according to the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office.
Speaking to The Post by phone Wednesday, Rabbi Lankry, who leads the congregation, worried that law enforcement was jumping to conclusions about Mayer.
“There’s a very big concern [in the community] that we may be coming to conclusions too fast…and therefore compromising a person’s life,”said Lankry, who did not witness the incident but was “in the vicinity.”
“And at the same time, if he really is someone that had ill intentions, it should be public knowledge.”
Lankry, who does not know Mayer or the victim personally, cautioned against immediate judgment of the situation.
“We have to give [Mayer] a chance to talk,” he urged. “Innocent until proven guilty is something we should all live by.”
When asked if the alleged abduction attempt brought up memories of the death of Leiby Kletzky, an 8-year-old Hasidic Jewish boy who was kidnapped and murdered in Borough Park in 2011, Lankry said the recent scenario “didn’t come close” to the earlier tragedy.
“[This situation] could be something as benign as someone from [the boy’s] family wanted [Mayer] to call the boy out,” he reasoned.
