6-year-old girl found the day after being abducted while playing near New Jersey home

<br>SPRING LAKE, N.J. (AP) _ A 6-year-old girl whose family left New York after the Sept. 11 attacks was found safe at a mall Friday after being abducted from outside her home the day before, broadcast

Friday, November 9th 2001, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

SPRING LAKE, N.J. (AP) _ A 6-year-old girl whose family left New York after the Sept. 11 attacks was found safe at a mall Friday after being abducted from outside her home the day before, broadcast reports said.

Anna Cardelfe was found at the Monmouth Mall in Eatontown, family friend Rosanna Scotto, a Fox 5 News New York anchor, told the station during a live broadcast. She said the girl and her parents were at the Spring Lake police station but she didn't have details on how the girl was found.

Authorities did not immediately confirm reports but scheduled a noon news conference.

Steven Kodak, an FBI spokesman in Newark, would say only that FBI agents were en route to Monmouth County. Police in Eatontown said they could not release any information on the case Friday morning.

News 12 New Jersey also reported the girl was safe. But it was not clear whether a suspect was in custody.

Anna was playing with a sibling and friends at 11:45 a.m. Thursday when a man drove up and enticed the girl into his car by showing her an unknown object, First Assistant Monmouth County Prosecutor Robert Honecker said earlier.

The man then pulled the girl inside and drove off, authorities said. The family's baby sitter was in the house at the time.

``We want Anna back safely and will do whatever it takes to get Anna back to us,'' Michael Cardelfe, Anna's father, said during a news conference Thursday night.

Cardelfe is president of ARB Oil Inc., a commodities trading firm on the New York Mercantile Exchange. His wife, Lynn Tesoro, is a public relations executive who has held top positions in the apparel industry.

The family formerly used the New Jersey house on weekends, but moved there full time following the attack on the World Trade Center near their home in lower Manhattan.

On Sept. 11, Tesoro had described fleeing to New Jersey on a ferry after the hijacked planes struck as she dropped off her children at school. Besides Anna, the couple have two sons and a daughter.

A 4-year-old friend who was playing with Anna on Thursday morning described the kidnapper as a white man in his 30s.

On Friday morning, Tara Harsin came to the neighborhood to hang a sign on a tree. Made by children, the sign said: ``We love you Anna.''