The parents of a Long Island teen missing for more than two weeks pleaded yesterday for her safe return home from the clutches of a registered sex offender.
“I want her to call so I know she’s OK,” said Christine Kunz, mother of 16-year-old Stephanie Caruso of Southampton.
“Please come home, we’ll get you home,” she said, wiping her eye with a tissue.
Caruso has been missing since Jan. 30, when she climbed out her bedroom window, hailed a cab, and fled to New Jersey to meet Lester B. Joy, a 24-year-old sex offender she met online, cops said.
Laura Ahearn, executive director of Megan’s Law in Stony Brook, said that Joy served prison time in 2002 for taking advantage of a 13-year-old victim. “He’s a sexual predator who trawls the Internet looking for vulnerable teens,” said Ahearn.