I-Team: Kidnapping Suspect Had Several Run-Ins With Police
BOSTON (CBS) - Victor Pena's most recent run-in with police was about six months before his alleged encounter with Olivia Ambrose. Police say they caught him cheating at Twin River Casino in Lincoln, Rhode Island.
The State Police Gang Unit made a trip to Pena's Charlestown apartment July 28th and arrested him for allegedly altering game cards to skim reward points for cash. He was released on $2,000 bail and banned from Twin River.
Before that, Pena's documented troubles go back more than a decade. At the Downtown Crossing MBTA Station in 2009, a woman said Pena followed and sat across from her on a train. MBTA Transit Police Supt. Richard Sullivan said, "She felt he was staring at her and trying to look up her skirt." Pena later told officers he was trying to help her because she looked scared.
Than about a week later at the State Street T stop, police asked Pena to leave after an officer noticed him sitting suspiciously close to two girls on the platform. Transit Police never arrested him.
About a year before that, the mother of Pena's child, who met him on a "chatline" took out a restraining order against him. It was March of 2008 when a caseworker wrote the woman said, "He's always abusing me and I feel much fear and I'm afraid for my life and my daughter's."
That was similar to another restraining order a different woman took out against Pena four years earlier in August of 2004, saying, "I'm afraid he might hurt me or the children."
At that point, he was on probation for an incident five months earlier at Boston's Pine Street Inn where he was living at the time. The police report said he, "hit the victim four times on the forehead and face, forcing him to the floor." That case was dismissed after he completed his probation.