Mother charged in kidnapping of son

An estranged Newport Beach mother pleaded not guilty Tuesday to offering a private investigator $10,000 to kidnap her son and take him to Mexico, where she would pick him up.

Niveen Ismail, 43, was charged with solicitation to commit kidnapping Tuesday after Newport Beach police arrested her Friday, when she met an undercover officer who agreed to kidnap her son for money, prosecutors said.

Ismail’s 7-year-old son lives with a foster family in Lake Forest and is in the process of being adopted, according to authorities.

She’s accused of contacting multiple private investigators hoping that one of them would kidnap her son for money and take him to Tijuana and help her get passports as well. From there, prosecutors claim, she planned on taking him to the Middle East or Europe.

Ismail faces up to three years in prison if convicted of all charges. She is being held in Orange County Jail in lieu of $1-million bail. She has a pretrial hearing scheduled for Tuesday.

— Joseph Serna