The man accused of kidnapping an 8-year-old girl in front of her mother from a Fort Worth neighborhood in May and later sexually assaulting the child has been formally indicted in Tarrant County on nine state charges.
Michael Webb was charged Friday with one count of aggravated kidnapping, six counts of aggravated sexual assault of a child (enhanced) and two counts of indecency with a child (habitual offender notice).
Webb is accused of snatching a young girl off the street in Fort Worth as she walked with her mother in the Ryan Place neighborhood on May 18. The girl's mother tried to prevent the abduction, but was overpowered by Webb, police said.
After an hourslong search, which included an Amber Alert being issued at about 11 p.m., the girl was rescued shortly after midnight at a hotel in Forest Hill. Webb was arrested at the scene.
The charges announced Friday are state charges; Webb also faces a federal kidnapping charge, federal prosecutors said, because he used his phone, the internet, a car, hotel and interstate highways while committing the kidnapping.
The federal case begins next week. Last week, Webb's attorneys said they wanted the case dismissed, arguing the search of his room, where police said he was found with the missing girl, was illegal because there was no probable cause to enter the room.
Forest Hill police visited Webb at his room earlier in the evening after a witness called police and said they saw him enter the hotel with a child. During their initial visit, Forest Hill police never spotted the child and left the room hours before she was eventually rescued by Fort Worth police.
The Forest Hill officer who searched the room but didn't uncover the girl was later fired.
