A neighborhood handyman was charged in the alleged kidnapping and sexual assault of a 3-year-old girl over the weekend, the L.A. County District Attorney's office announced.

Fifty-five-year-old Edward Lopez is alleged to have taken the girl from his Boyle Heights neighbors' party Saturday night, prosecutors said.

It happened in the 3200 block of Malabar Street, LAPD Officer Sara Faden told us. That happens to be across the street from an elementary school.

The mother of the girl noticed she was missing about 11 p.m. Saturday and called police, according to the LAPD and the D.A.'s office.


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The girl was found with the suspect, who was nude, in a locked shed nearby, prosecutors claim. That was reportedly hours after she had gone missing (the man was officially arrested early the next afternoon, according to records).

The D.A.'s office lists the following allegations in the case:

… One count each of oral copulation of a child under 10, kidnapping to commit a lewd act on a child and lewd act on a child.

Lopez was officially booked at 6:07 p.m. Sunday, according to L.A. County Sheriff's Department inmate data. He was being held in lieu of $1 million bail.

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