Convicted murderer on parole tries to kidnap girl, 8, in NYC: cops

A convicted murderer released on parole less than three months ago tried to kidnap an 8-year-old girl in front of her dad on a Bronx street this week, cops said. 

Juan Rivera, 52 — who was only released from state prison in late August — grabbed the girl as she walked with her father at Fox Street and St. John Avenue in the Woodstock neighborhood around 3:15 p.m. Wednesday, authorities said. 

Rivera “physically restrained” the child as he walked with her along the sidewalk, cops said. 

The girl’s dad stepped in and managed to wrestle his daughter out of the fiend’s clutches, police said. 

NYPD officers who happened to be driving by at the time arrested Rivera, cops said. 

He was charged with kidnapping, unlawful imprisonment and harassment, authorities said. 

“I f–ked up,” Rivera admitted, according to cops.

It’s unclear if he made the statement at some point during the heinous incident or later, while he was in custody. 

Rivera was last arrested on March 25, 2003, for fatally shooting a 33-year-old man in the Bronx, cops and police sources said. 

He was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to 25 years to life, state correction records show. 

He was held in the Franklin Correctional Facility in Malone, New York, from July 22, 2005, through Aug. 25 of this year, when he was released on parole, records show. 

Police say he was also arrested for attempted murder on Oct. 25, 1993. 

But that charge does not appear in correction records, which show he was held in the Altona Correctional Facility from May 1995 through September 2001 on burglary and weapon possession raps. 

Wednesday’s bust marks Rivera’s sixth unsealed arrest in the Big Apple, cops said. 

His record also includes raps for weapon possession and narcotics use, police said. His first bust was in 1988.