Man Is Released After 2 Children Returned

Calling the incident a “misunderstanding,” police released a 26-year-old man who had been questioned after he returned two Anaheim children missing for more than a week, authorities said Friday.

Michael Robert Cocco, identified as a longtime family friend, was taken into custody for questioning late Thursday after he returned the children, an 11-year-old boy and his 7-year-old sister, to their grandparents, Kermit and Peggy Lopp, with whom they had been living.

“A misunderstanding of instructions had prevented Mr. Cocco from returning the children earlier,” Placentia Police Sgt. Russ Rice said.

The children were last seen about midnight June 1 at the corner of Bastanchury Road and Placentia Avenue in Placentia, where their father, Rick Lopp, had been stopped by police for making an illegal U-turn, then arrested on an outstanding warrant for a previous moving violation, Rice said.

According to Peggy Lopp, Cocco was with her son when he was stopped by police, and the children were asleep in the back of the vehicle. She said her son told Cocco to call the children’s mother and say he was bringing them to their grandparents’ house in Anaheim, but that Cocco never did.

Cocco instead took the children to a Stanton hotel, where they stayed the entire week, Rice said.

The grandparents reported the children missing June 4. The family held a news conference Thursday morning at the Adam Walsh Child Resource Center in Orange to help locate the children.

Cocco telephoned the grandparents after seeing pictures of the children on a television news program Thursday afternoon, and he brought the children back shortly thereafter, police said.