SYLACAUGA, Ala. – Stephen Bradley Quintanilla, the father of Malachi Quintanilla, has been arrested for abducting Malichi earlier this week, the Sylacauga Police Department has announced.
Quintilla, a 27-year-old from New Orleans, Louisiana, has been charged with Interference with Custody after allegedly abducting his 5-year-old son when he got off the school bus at his apartment in Sylacauga on April 23. Quintanilla is accused of taking young Malachi Quintanilla that day with plans of taking him back to New Orleans, Louisiana.
Quintanilla was arrested by SPD after being released on a $25,000 bond from Coosa County Sheriff’s Department. He was in custody there on for another count of Interference with Custody from an incident that occurred in December 2017.
Sylacauga Police Department investigators along with help from numerous law enforcement agencies all over the Southeast were able to team up and catch up with Quintanilla in Lee County, Mississippi where he was taken into custody for the charges in Coosa County. It was at this time that Malachi Quintanilla was recovered safely and placed in the custody of Mississippi Child Protective Services.
Stephen Quintanilla was extradited to Alabama on Tuesday, April 24, and placed in the Coosa County Jail until he made bond on the original charge of Interference with Custody. It was also Tuesday, April 24, when Malachi Quintanilla was reunited with his mother in a Mississippi Courtroom.
On Wednesday, April 25, Stephen Quintanilla was transferred to the Talladega County Jail on the charge of Interference with Custody, a Class “C” Felony. On Thursday, April 26, 2018 Judge Ryan Rumsey, District Judge of Talladega County, set Quintanilla’s bond at $50,000. Quintanilla remains in the Talladega County Jail on the charge.
If convicted of the charge of Interference with Custody, a Class “C” Felony, Quintanilla could be sentenced to not more than 10 years in prison or less than one year and one day.
