A man with a lengthy criminal history who was previously on a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) hold is on the run after being accused of groping a 7-year-old Texas girl as she walked home from school.
Carlos Jose Ayala Morales, 43, has been charged with felony attempted indecency with a child, the Houston Police Department said. He is accused of grabbing the girl Jan. 27 while she was on her way home from her elementary school, Fox Houston reported.
The girl and her mother told the news outlet she was walking behind her older sister and a friend. They said the man ran up, groped her and ran away. The girl didn’t scream because she was in shock and told her older sister when they got home.
“A man came behind me, and he touched my private parts,” the girl told the station.
“I hope he’s caught and put away much longer, so he can’t hurt other children,” her mother said.
Morales has a lengthy criminal history. In 2017, he was charged with four counts of indecency with a child and evading arrest.
At the time, police believed Morales, who they called Ayala, was linked to “at least 10 sexual assault incidents in the northeast Houston and Harris County areas.”
Authorities were investigating a string of “sexual assaults of school-aged juvenile females, 7-15 years of age, as they traveled to and from school,” according to the news outlet.
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“Ayala would come up behind the victims and inappropriately touch them through their clothing,” a police news release states.
In one incident, Ayala attempted to abduct one of the victims, a 7 year-old female, as she walked home from school with her 9-year-old brother,” police said.
“Reading that made me so scared, because that could have been [my child],” the victim’s mother said.
When he was arrested in 2017, ICE filed a detainer request for Morales, a Honduran citizen, which was lifted when he was convicted.
The Texas Department of Criminal Justice told FOX 26 Ayala was transferred to prison to serve concurrent seven-year sentences for indecency with a child by exposure, three counts of indecency with a child, evading arrest, detention with a vehicle and burglary.
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In February 2024, he was released into ICE custody.
Fox News Digital has reached out to ICE.
