Adam Croote
© WRGB

Albany, New York - Upstate N.Y. man Adam Croote, now accused of raping a 10-year-old girl, was the subject of a missing child case that received national attention in the 1990s, including getting his photograph taken with President Bill Clinton at the White House, authorities said Thursday.

Croote has a troubled past that includes his father killing his mother, his abduction by his grandmother and a sex crime conviction in Massachusetts.

The 23-year-old was charged last Monday with attacking a young girl he was babysitting at a home in Berne, near Albany, police said. He pleaded not guilty Monday to attempted murder, rape and other counts.

Croote reportedly knew the girl's family and they asked if he could watch the child after she arrived home from school Monday afternoon. He is accused of raping the girl and trying to strangle her and break her neck after she screamed, police said.

The girl, who managed to break free and escape the house, was treated at a hospital and released according to the local paper the Times Union of Albany.

Croote was convicted previously of forcible sexual contact in an incident with a female school employee while in Massachusetts in 2005.

When Croote was two-years-old his father, an army soldier, shot and killed Adam's pregnant mother and was sentenced to 20 years in prison.

In 1992, Croote's maternal grandmother abducted him from his other grandmother, who was living at the time near Albany. The maternal grandmother, Margaret Zibura, and her husband, Frank, lived under assumed names with the boy for three years in Mildred, Kan. The couple was arrested by the FBI in 1995.

At age 7 in 1996, he was photographed with Clinton at the signing of an executive order to set aside space in every federal building for posting pictures of missing children.

Croote was being held Thursday without bail at the Albany County Jail on charges of attempted second-degree murder, rape, criminal sexual act, sexual abuse, forcible touching and criminal obstruction of breathing.