A 19-year-old woman has been indicted for the January kidnapping and rape of a 5-year-old Philadelphia girl. Prosecutors say Christina Regusters wore an Islamic veil and pretended to be the mother of Nailla Robinson when she checked the kindergartner out of school in January. The girl was taken to a nearby house and sexually assaulted, then abandoned nearly naked at a playground, where she was rescued.

Regusters was indicted by a Philadelphia County grand jury Monday on 11 counts, including involuntary deviant sexual intercourse, aggravated assault, kidnapping and false imprisonment.

The Jan. 14 abduction of Nailla Robinson made national news and spurred a citywide search in Philadelphia after police said a woman dressed in a burqa signed the girl out of her classroom at William C. Bryant Elementary School in the Cobbs Creek neighborhood, saying she was taking the 5-year-old to breakfast.

Nailla’s mother, Latifah Rashid, wears Islamic wardrobe. The kidnapper wore a veil (niqab) that covers a woman’s face except for her eyes. Rashid said the kidnapper told Nailla’s teacher “that she was me, her mother, and that she was taking her out to breakfast and Nailla was already signed out at the office and she took my child and left.”

Although the girl was checked out of school before 9 a.m., it was nearly 3 p.m. before school officials realized the wrong person had picked up Nailla.

A $10,000 reward was offered and the girl was found the next morning at a park playground in nearby Upper Darby township. The 5-year-old was wearing only a T-shirt in near-freezing weather. She was hospitalized for what an attorney for the girl’s family called “devastating and horrible injuries.”

Investigation of the abduction involved DNA evidence as well as the victim’s report that there was a “talking bird” at the house where she said she was blindfolded and hidden under a bed. Police eventually searched 6243 Walton Avenue, where four residents were interviewed and submitted to DNA tests. During their search, police say a blue-and-yellow macaw at the home was heard talking.

DNA found on the girl’s T-shirt was reportedly linked to Regusters. Police say Regusters knew Nailla, who attended an after-school program where Regusters worked. Video from a school surveillance camera captured images of the girl leaving with her kidnapper.

Regusters was arrested Feb. 14 on charges that included conspiracy, indicating other suspects may have been involved in Nailla’s abduction. An attorney for Reguster told Philadelphia’s KYW-AM radio that “his client was not a major participant” in the crimes against the child, although no one else has been charged. Philadelphia ABC affiliate WPVI-TV reported that Reguster’s father, 40-year-old Demetreaus Moore is a registered sex offender who was recently released from prison after serving more than six years on a 2005 charge of sexually abusing a minor in Maryland.

The fact that a burqa was used as a disguise in Nailla’s abduction has raised concerns. Philadelphia “has quietly and unassumingly become the capital of the Western world as regards female Islamic garb as an accessory to crime,” National Review columnist Daniel Pipes wrote in February. “By my count, the Philadelphia region has witnessed 14 robberies (or attempted robberies) of financial institutions in the past six years in which the thieves relied on an Islamic full-body cover. … The most violent attack took place on May 3, 2008, when Police Sergeant Stephen Liczbinski was killed with an AK-47 in a shoot-out following a successful robbery in which the thieves wore burqas; the police then killed one of the criminals.”

READ MORE:

• Steve Tawa, KYW-AM, April 29: Grand Jury Indicts Teen in West Philadelphia Kidnap-Rape of Five Year Old
• Sulaiman Abdur-Rahman, Philadelphia Inquirer, April 30: Woman charged with sex assault in kidnap
• Lateef Mungin and Sarah Hoye, CNN, April 30: Philadelphia woman charged with kidnapping girl from school, raping her
• Frank Kummer, Emily Babay and Mari Schaefer, Philadelphia Inquirer, Jan. 15: Good Samaritan says he did what he’d want ‘someone to do for my child’
• Jamie McCarty, ABC News, Jan. 15:  Missing Pa. Girl, 5, Abducted From School Found
• Joseph A. Slobodzian, Mike Newall and Sulaiman Abdur-Rahman, Philadelphia Inquirer, Feb. 16: Questions remain about abduction of girl, 5
• David Henry, WPVI-TV, Feb. 20: Kidnap suspect Regusters’ father is a registered sex offender
• Daniel Pipes, National Review, Feb. 22: Philadelphia’s Burqa Crisis