SAN DIEGO — A man who was captured in widely circulated footage grabbing a young boy outside an Ocean Beach business and trying to take the child with him was sentenced Wednesday to two years in county jail.
Christopher Higginbotham, 39, pleaded guilty to a felony false imprisonment count for picking an 8-year-old boy up on March 22 along Newport Avenue. He was subdued by a group of people, including the boy's father. Higgenbotham has a history of felony convictions that involve assault.
Higginbotham was arrested and initially charged with attempted kidnapping, but that count was dismissed as part of his guilty plea.
During a Wednesday afternoon sentencing hearing, Higginbotham said what occurred was a mistake, as at the time, he believed the boy was his son.
"I would like to express my deepest and most sincere apologies," he said in court. "Due to the duress and confusion in my mind, I had greatly mistaken the child for my own."
Higginbotham's 12-year-old son Orin and the mother of Higginbotham's son, Kazia Valinor, both attended the sentencing hearing in support and said Higginbotham has struggled with homelessness and substance abuse for a long time. They both believe it's a case of mistaken identity.
“He was also on acid and that kind of explains why he thought that boy was me," Orin said.
Valinor said Higginbotham did not have a stable address or cellphone, but was known to be in Ocean Beach and she and her son would often travel there to see if they could find him in the area. Valinor said when she saw news stories about the incident, "It broke my heart because I knew it was a mistake."
The victim and his father did not attend the hearing, but Deputy District Attorney Eva Kilamyan said that the boy has been traumatized by the incident, suffers from nightmares, and does not want to go outside or to school.
The victim's father Adrian Villanueva says his 8-year-old son is terribly affected by what happened to him outside the family’s new deli. He spoke with CBS 8 after the sentencing.
“I don't know what would have happened if I wasn't there," Villanueva says. "It was like a three-minute action but it was really, really, really bad. My son, he likes to stay mostly all the time at home and I feel bad because he won't go anywhere with nobody that's not me or my wife.”
The prosecutor said that "only (Higginbotham) knows what he was thinking that day," but said that due to the differing physical appearances between the victim and Higginbotham's son, "There was really no reason for him to believe that that was his son."
CBS 8 asked Villanueva what he thinks of the two-year sentence. He says he doesn't believe it's a long enough sentence. He worries Higgenbotham will commit a similar crime when he's released.
“I forgive him," Villanueva said. "I forgive him for what he did. But don't do it again buddy. Don't even think about grabbing another child that's not yours. What you did, it wasn't right.”
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