A retired Philadelphia Police inspector, who was arrested for allegedly trying to lure an 8-year-old girl in Roxborough last month, is being held on $1 million bail, according to authorities.
On Thursday, Philadelphia Police arrested Leo Haley, 72, for allegedly trying to lure the girl by grabbing her by the neck and threatening to kill her. And, NBC10 has obtained court documents showing the ex-cop has a history of child porn offenses.
Haley is accused of trying to get the girl into his car on Oct. 17 while she was walking on the 7000 block of Voight Road, police said.
"I was so happy they finally caught him," said the victim's father Chris Long. "He can't hurt anyone else."
Long, and the 8-year-old's mother Donna Harte, spoke exclusively to NBC10's Rosemary Connors saying that their daughter was playing near the front their home when a man approached her and grabbed her by the neck.
“When somebody actually walks right onto your property and grabs your child, it’s a very, very scary feeling,” said Long.
Long says the man only let the girl go when he heard a car drive by but before he left, the girl says he threatened to kill her if she told anyone.
Haley is listed as a Megan's Law offender after an earlier child porn arrest.
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"He's a predator, he outta be treated like a predator, he outta be put in the penitentiary and he stay in the penitentiary," said Philadelphia Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey.
Neighbors say police picked up Haley at his home on the 4300 block of Lauriston Street Wednesday morning.
The 30-year veteran of the police force has a history of sexual crimes involving children after his retirement. He was arrested in 2010 on dozens of charges of child pornography in Delaware County.
According to a Daily News report two years ago, authorities say, Haley admitted downloading, viewing and sharing child pornography through Limewire, which is a file-sharing network.
Haley faced 112 counts in that earlier case but wound up pleading guilty in Jan. 2011 to five counts of child pornography, one count of disseminating a photo/film of a child sex act and forfeited his computer, thumb drives and hard drives. He was sentenced to a minimum of six months and maximum of 23 months in prison and seven concurrent years of probation, according to court records.
Haley served house arrest for about six months before being given supervised probation, his lawyer Robert Frederick Datner told NBC10.
Neighbors don't understand why he never served jail time.
"He's been here the whole time," said one outraged neighbor. "We heard rumors that he was on house arrest... he's been here everyday, we've seen him and we see his car move."
Datner says he argued for no jail time for his client because Haley suffers from high blood pressure and heart problems.
"You hear of much more severe punishment for others so where's the fairness there?" asked neighbor Marlene Sahms.
Haley is charged with unlawful restraint, terroristic threats, luring a child into a vehicle and harassment in connection to the Voight Road incident.
Police told NBC10 that they are looking into rumors of other attempted lurings also in the Roxborough area but they made no connection with Haley to those allegations.
Haley's mother is just happy to see Haley behind bars.
"Maybe we can sleep now that he's off the streets," Harte said.
