Transient Charged in Abduction of Boy, 11 : Crime: Police describe the man as a ‘classic pedophile.’ The 23-year-old also is suspected of molesting two other boys in the San Gabriel Valley.

Police Monday described the transient who allegedly kidnaped an 11-year-old El Monte boy last week as a “classic pedophile.”

Javier Fernandez Gonzalez, 23, now in the Poweshiek County Jail in Iowa, drove Raymond Lauriano across the country with three boys from Mexico before all were rescued by an Iowa state trooper, El Monte police said.

Gonzalez did not molest Lauriano, police said. But Gonzalez is suspected of sexually molesting two other boys, 13 and 14, just three weeks ago in the San Gabriel Valley, police said.

Molestation charges from those two incidents, plus criminal charges from last week’s four-day abduction, were filed Monday in Rio Hondo Municipal Court in El Monte. The charges, six felonies and one misdemeanor, will allow Gonzalez to be extradited from Iowa to stand trial in Los Angeles County, authorities said.

Extensive police interviews with more than 50 children and adults led police to believe that Gonzalez preyed on the mainly Latino immigrant children living in a large apartment complex on Bonwood Road in El Monte, Detective Tom Armstrong said.

Gonzalez gave the children rides on his motor scooter and treated them to trips to a downtown Los Angeles video arcade, the detective said. Some children spent nights with the unemployed transient.

When Gonzalez later molested the children whose trust he had gained, he silenced them with threats, Armstrong said.

“He endeared himself to children,” the detective said. “He fits the classic pedophile profile.”

The unemployed drifter apparently attracted little attention from adults, who said they never spoke to him as he hung around at all hours outside the complex, known as the Klingerman Street Apartments.

Immigrant families are packed into units in the run-down, two-story warren-like complex. Young men in T-shirts and gray-haired laborers lounging on street corners are a common sight.

But children knew well “Easy Boy” or “Facil,” nicknames used by Gonzalez.

“He was always in the Laundromat or at the school playground after school, just talking to the kids,” said Rito Velasco, a 12-year-old who lives in the complex. “He would just bring us things, like candy and marbles.”

Other boys said they avoided the offer of rides on Gonzalez’s red motor scooter after they heard about two boys disappearing for two days and other boys left stranded miles away.

El Monte police say Gonzalez may not be the suspect’s real name. A drifter, Gonzalez moved from Pomona to El Monte, but lacked a permanent address.

He told El Monte police his name was Gonzalez on May 11, when he allegedly was attacked by a robber who tried to steal his motor scooter, Armstrong said. Gonzalez failed to appear in court and the suspect was released.

When police arrested Gonzalez in Iowa, they could not take his fingerprints, said Maj. Loren Dykeman of the Iowa State Patrol, because the ridges on his fingertips had been obliterated by either acid or a knife.

But to 11-year-old Raymond, “Easy Boy” seemed a good friend who promised to buy him a bicycle. Raymond, outfitted in a brand-new green and orange baseball cap and orange-trimmed shirt and shorts--the colors of his favorite football team, the Miami Hurricanes, eagerly met with his fifth-grade classmates Monday and promised to return to school soon.

Later, at his home, he spoke easily of his kidnaping and cross-country trip.

It began when another boy came to Raymond’s home last Wednesday and said “Easy Boy” would take him for a ride on his scooter. Raymond left trustingly, not telling his mother, Guadalupe Cardenez.

After midnight, when her son had not returned home, she called police.

During the next three days, friends and family members worried and raised $2,000 as a reward. Meanwhile, Raymond said he plotted with the three other boys, all from Tijuana, to escape.

After Gonzalez allegedly stole a car in Ontario and began driving through Nevada, the boys--ages 11, 12 and 13--came up with escape schemes. But they could never put them into action because of their fear.

“He’d say: ‘Be quiet, skeletons!’ ” Raymond said.

In Nevada, Gonzalez was stopped by police for traveling at 100 m.p.h. But the officer took no notice of the four boys and merely ticketed Gonzalez, Raymond said.

In Colorado, Raymond said he tried to escape, running away while Gonzalez was in a restroom. But Gonzalez caught Raymond and threw him back in the car, skinning the boy’s nose as he pushed him inside.

The boys were rescued when Gonzalez, low on funds, began panhandling for gas money in Malcolm, Iowa. A state trooper who noticed the panhandler and stopped Gonzalez realized that Raymond had been kidnaped.

The boys from Tijuana were to be returned to Mexico by Immigration and Naturalization Service officials.

Meanwhile, Raymond said he is glad to be home and has learned a lesson: “That I shouldn’t be with people that I don’t know.”