Police: Man Offers Boy Up For Sex To Tourist In Central Park

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- Police are trying to find a man who they said offered a young boy up for sex to a tourist in Central Park.

Just before midnight Thursday, police said a 35-year-old man with a boy approached a 50-year-old tourist from California who was walking by Bow Bridge near 74th Street.

The man, claiming to be the boy's father, then asked the tourist if he wanted to perform sex acts with the boy in exchange for $300, police said. The boy was about 11 years old.

The man immediately walked away and called police, but the two were gone by the time officers arrived.

Park goers Friday morning were stunned by the allegations.

"It leaves me without words," area worker David Velez told CBS2's Janelle Burrell. "I can't believe as a parent, somebody would do that. It's just a sick, twisted world that we live in."

"Very troubling," another woman told 1010 WINS' Glenn Schuck. "We have four kids and we live near the park and we are concerned."

Police describe the suspect as a clean-shaven white man wearing a black coat with a fur hood. The boy was seen wearing an orange or red jacket. He stood 5 feet 7 inches tall and had brown hair, a light complexion, and a medium build, police said.

The boy was wearing a red or orange windbreaker-type coat and had a slim build, police said.

Police told 1010 WINS a video canvass turned up nothing, and detectives were reinterviewing the person who reported the incident.

Anyone with information is urged to call police.