Matthew Santoni, The Examiner
2008-04-30 07:00:00.0
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BALTIMORE -

A 21-year-old man was being held without bond Tuesday on charges of kidnapping a man in Edgewood, then holding him bound at gunpoint in the back seat of a car until the victim escaped when the car crashed in Baltimore.

Javan P. Moore, of Abingdon, has been charged with armed robbery, carjacking, kidnapping, first-degree assault and felony theft.

 Police continued searching Tuesday for a second suspect in the Monday kidnapping. Frederick Coleman’s captors bound him with his own belt, forced him into the car he had rented, and drove from Edgewood to East Baltimore, police said.

As they drove, the men threatened to kill Coleman, 25, of Aberdeen, unless he gave them money or found someone who would, according to charging documents. When the captors said they might hold him for $100,000 ransom, Coleman replied that his mother might have the money, authorities said.

“Coleman was just trying to buy time to prevent the subjects from killing him,” charging documents said.

Coleman had been waiting outside an apartment in the 1700 block of Fountain Rock Way in Edgewood around 12:30 a.m. Monday when two masked men robbed him at gunpoint, forced him into a garage, tied his hands and made him lie in the back seat of his rental car, police said.

Moore held a gun on Coleman in the back seat, while the other kidnapper drove, according to the charging documents.

Coleman told police he could tell the driver was a light-skinned black male with short hair and glasses, police said, but the other captor was still wearing a mask.

Inside the city, Coleman loosened the belt around his wrists enough to get loose and fight Moore in the back seat over the gun.

During the struggle, Coleman said he recognized Moore as the cousin of a woman he was waiting for earlier that night, according to police reports.

The driver bailed out of the moving car, and Moore fled after the car hit a light pole on Orleans Street near Johns Hopkins Hospital, police said.

Investigators  were questioning the resident of the apartment where Coleman had been waiting when her cousin, Moore, walked in, according to the charging documents.

Harford County District Court Judge Victor K. Butanis denied bond at a Tuesday hearing.

“If you look over the facts of the case … I see no other alternative,” Assistant State’s Attorney M. Elizabeth Bowen told Butanis.

msantoni@baltimoreexaminer.com