A US Air Force pilot wept today as he was acquitted of kidnapping a nine-year-old French girl outside Harrods before drugging and sexually assaulting her.
Robert Prussak, 57, collapsed as ‘not guilty’ verdicts on all six charges against him were read at Isleworth Crown Court.
The accused was previously said to have approached the girl outside Harrods after she became separated from her family on April 22, while on holiday in London.
Prosecutors alleged he then took her back to his hotel apartment and drugged her, before taking her to Hyde Park and touching her inappropriately.
But Mr Prussak’s evidence was that he was “just trying to help” the girl, who cannot be named for legal reasons, and wanted to keep her “safe”.
Robert Prussak, 57, has been found not guilty of kidnapping, drugging and sexually assaulting a nine-year-old French girl outside Harrods.
The father of two also told the jury that he decided to help when he saw her because he would have liked someone to help his own daughters.
He said: ‘When I saw her, I thought she looked lost because she was looking around, like she was looking for someone.
But then I thought maybe he was waiting for someone inside the store and I kept walking.
‘But as I was doing it, I thought: What if she’s lost and needs help? My mind went straight to my daughters, who are a few years older than her.
“I thought if my daughters got lost in a big city, I wouldn’t want them stuck there alone.”
The pilot spoke to the girl and she responded in another language, so he began communicating with her using the Google Translate application, jurors heard.
Prussak said he asked the girl how long it had been since she saw her parents and she held up three fingers, which he interpreted as three minutes.
She claimed to have asked the nine-year-old girl if her parents were shopping, but said the girl told her her family was headed to a museum, but she wasn’t sure which one.
Prussak said he started walking with the girl toward a museum to “hopefully intercept the parents” and searched his phone for police stations and “surprisingly they were pretty far away.”
When asked what his intention was, he said: “Keep her safe and reunite her with her parents.”
Prussak said his goal was to “stay on the way to a museum and keep her safe and comfortable.”
The accused was previously said to have approached the girl outside the department store after she became separated from her family on April 22, while on holiday in London.
When asked why they didn’t go to the museum, he said it started raining harder and they hadn’t seen the girl’s parents.
The pilot said they went to his apartment to look for a police station because his apartment was “very close” and he knew “how to get there quickly.”
He said: “I had found three police stations on Google Maps, but there didn’t seem to be a direct route to any of them.”
“It started to rain and the rain was falling on my phone, so since my apartment was nearby, I thought I’d better go there.”
While there, he gave her a drink of water and let her watch TV.
Tests of the girl’s urine after she was found detected diphenhydramine, the active ingredient in Benadryl, prompting an allegation that Prussak had added the sedative to the drink he gave her.
But tests of the glasses in Mr. Prussak’s apartment showed no evidence of Benadryl.
Mr. Prussak said that the girl used the word “bite,” and a few discussions later he “thought” she meant “bitter,” then tried his own water from the same bottle and said it tasted “normal.”
Prussak said he and the girl left their apartment after he found a nearby fire station on his iPad, where he intended to seek help.
They followed a Google Maps route that took them through Hyde Park and then ran into police officers outside the Israeli embassy.
Mr Prussak had insisted to jurors: “I did not touch (the girl) in the way she described.” I’m not sure why you would say that.
When asked by his lawyer if he would have done things differently now, he admitted: “In retrospect, knowing now that his parents were in Harrods, staying in that place or going in would have been the best solution.”
“But at that point they told me they weren’t shopping, so I thought I had to find the parents or the police.”
The father of two also told the jury that he decided to help when he saw her because he would have liked someone to help his own daughters.
Catherine Donnelly, defending, alleged that he had put Benadryl in the water and asked him if he had, and he replied “no.”
He then asked: ‘The allegation is that you did that to put her to sleep or stun her or something like that, did you do that?’
Mr Prussak replied: “No.”
Donnelly asked his client why he didn’t call the police.
Mr Prussak said: “I absolutely regret not calling the police sooner.” I had never done it before and didn’t know what response I would get.
‘I was afraid they would send the cavalry and the ambulances and all that. I thought I could get there more efficiently.’
The jury saw CCTV footage of the moment Prussak met the girl outside Harrods.
The pilot was seen walking past the girl before stopping to talk to her. They then communicated for a while using his phone before walking away together.
The girl’s father, speaking by video link from France, told jurors that Harrods staff reviewed the department store’s security cameras after he told them his daughter was missing.
When the police arrived, the girl’s parents gave them a photograph of their daughter to help in the search.
The father said an officer showed him a photo of his daughter walking away with an unknown man, at which point he began to believe she had been kidnapped.
“At first, as the minutes passed, I thought she was lost, but when I saw the man’s photo I thought she might have been kidnapped,” she said.
The girl’s mother added: “I was speechless, I couldn’t believe it.
‘It was very stressful, we were in the halls of Harrods upstairs. I was very stressed, but I tried to stay calm for the children.’
Court heard girl got lost while visiting department store with her family (file image)
Jurors found the pilot innocent of all charges against him: kidnapping, kidnapping with intent to commit a sexual crime, administration of a substance with intent, and three counts of sexual assault.
The court heard that Mr. Prussak was a pilot in the United States Air Force for 18 and a half years.
He then became a Walmart pilot before moving on to work as a “contract pilot” so he could visit his daughters more after divorcing his wife.
He was in London in April for a job interview.
After the verdicts were read, Judge Edward Connell said: “You are released.”
On Tuesday, the Metropolitan Police arrested a man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, at Isleworth Crown Court on suspicion of possession of indecent images of children.
He was taken to a police station and remains detained.