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Alleged Victim: “He Kept Looking Up and Smiling”

Posted at 10:19 PM, Jul 01, 2013
and last updated 2013-07-02 07:42:34-04

Chad Servis

WYOMING, Mich. — A registered sex offender is back behind bars after police say he approached a group of cousins near Ideal Park in Wyoming Saturday night.  According to police, the boys’ family helped make the arrest.

Alleged victim Antonio Lopez, 17, is being called a hero by his family.  They say he helped bring his younger cousins to safety when the suspect approached them and asked them to go under a highway bridge with him.

Chad Servis was released from prison in 2011 after serving more than eight years for sex crimes, including the same thing he allegedly did in this case.

“He was creepy, like really creepy,” Lopez said, “he had his hands tucked in his pockets looking down, then he kept looking up and smiling.”

Lopez says he and his cousins left a family birthday party down the street for a game of basketball.  He says Servis approached them asking if they knew about graffiti under the highway and asking which one of them was the “toughest.”

Lopez says that’s when instinct kicked in and he knew they had to get out of there.  He says he knew to stay calm from watching crime shows.

“If I would have panicked, that might have set the guy off,” Lopez said, “and he could have freaked out.”

The cousins say they left and told their parents what had happened.  That’s when the parents sprung into action.

“When they went to go talk to the guy the guy took off running into the woods and they tried to find him,” Lopez said.  “They called my aunt and everybody got rounded up into the house and everybody went on a search party for him.”

Antonio’s uncle, James Parfait, was a part of that search party.

“One thing you don`t do is mess with family,” Parfait said.

Members of the family say they cornered Servis and waited for police.  He was charged with two counts of accosting children for immoral purposes Monday morning.

Servis is in the Kent County Jail held on $100,000 bond and is to have no contact with anyone under the age of 18.  His preliminary exam is scheduled for July 10.