SEATTLE — A 65-year-old man accused of trying to walk off with a 5-year-old California boy at Seattle’s busy Pike Place Market has been ordered held on $250,000 bail.

A King County Superior Court judge also decided Tuesday there was probable cause to hold Robert Steiner of Seattle pending the filing of formal criminal charges.

According to Seattle police, Brian and Dayna Fladhammer, of Santa Clarita, Calif., and their three children, ages 5, 6 and 7, were sightseeing Monday at the market when the mother looked up and couldn’t see her 5-year-old son, Tommy. The family began to search and the mother spotted the child about 40 feet away, being led away by a man. Police say the boy told them the man pulled him away from his family and released him when his mother came to his rescue. The boy wasn’t hurt.

Based on descriptions from the boy, his mother and other witnesses, bicycle police officers arrested a man a short time later as he was leaving a men’s restroom in the market.

Steiner was booked into the King County Jail for investigation of kidnapping.