A 58-year-old Dorchester man was arraigned in Roxbury court on Friday, Christmas Eve, on charges of attempted kidnapping and assault on a child in the Ellis Elementary schoolyard on Dec. 15. The defendant— Charles Marriro— was ordered held without bail pending a hearing this week.
District Attorney Rachael Rollins said Marriro is the man who approached three young students while they were playing at recess at the Walnut Avenue schoolyard. He is alleged to have grabbed one child by the arm and to have “asked another child to come play basketball with him,” according to prosecutors.
“Boston police were called and observed handprints on the arm of one of the young students. Police were able to obtain a photo of the individual, which led to his arrest on Thursday,” Rollins’s office said.
“These young students handled this frightening situation perfectly,” Rollins said. “They ran away and immediately notified a supervising adult. I am grateful for the excellent work by Boston Police and for the courage and strength of these elementary school students.”
Shaun Jenkins will not be tried again for cousin’s ’01 murder
Based on new revelations of police and prosecution misconduct, prosecutors have dropped the murder case against a Boston man who spent nearly two decades behind bars in the shooting death of his cousin.
Suffolk District Attorney Rachael Rollins, in a court filing on Dec. 22, dismissed the indictment against Shaun Jenkins that stemmed from the 2001 murder of his cousin, Stephen Jenkins, near Ronan Park in 2001.
Recently uncovered files show a Boston police detective paid a key witness $100 for his testimony and prosecutors withheld evidence that could have pointed to another suspect, according to a judge’s decision last week granting Shaun Jenkins’s motion for a new trial.
The judge wrote that misconduct by the detective and prosecutors “deprived Jenkins of a fair trial.” He had long maintained his innocence.
“It is clear that justice was not done here,” Rollins said in a statement. “When there is misconduct and/or material errors are made by law enforcement, including a prosecutor, we must always correct those errors. That is a vitally important part of building trust back into the criminal legal system.”
Shaun Jenkins was convicted in 2005 and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. He was freed in September.
