Edwin McFarlane, Boy Accused of Taking 3-Year-Old From Store, Held in New Sex Case

Edwin McFarlane, 15, is accused of sexually assaulting 15-year-old peer.

ByABC News
March 15, 2011, 12:18 PM

March 15, 2011 — -- A teen who less than a year ago was accused of attempting to take a 3-year-old from a Florida department store is behind bars for allegedly sexually assaulting a girl in the back of a school bus.

Edwin McFarlane, 15, is being held at the Marion County Regional Juvenile Detention Center after authorities allege he forced his more than 300-pound frame on a teen girl last Thursday, unzipping her pants and sexually attacking her on a South Lake High School bus in school bus in Groveland, Fla.

According to the police record obtained by ABC News, McFarlane allegedly approached the victim, who was lying on her back on a seat preparing to take a nap, and assaulted her.

"She told him to stop but he kept saying her name and did not stop," said the report from the Lake County Sheriff's Office.

A classmate who was also on the bus told police that he heard the victim say "Edwin stop" and that McFarlane responded, "Just once, come on," according to the report.

Video surveillance on the bus shows McFarlane approaching the girl and spending "several minutes" with the victim in her seat, but the back of the seat obstructs the view of exactly what the two teens were doing, according to authorities.

Police say McFarlane later admitted to assaulting the girl, saying that he knows what he did was wrong and that he did "hear the victim tell him to stop six times."

The teen has since written an apology letter to the victim, police say, and has been charged with both sexual battery and false imprisonment.

But this is not the first time that McFarlane has brushed with the law.

In June 2010 the then 14-year-old was arrested despite stating that he was helping a seemingly lost 3-year-old girl look for her mother in a Burlington Coat Factory.

Surveillance video of the incident shows McFarlane walking out of the store with the little girl. McFarlane later told police that he thought her mother left the store without her.