Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, June 30, 1995 TAG: 9506300067
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: KIMBERLY N. MARTIN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The man, whose name is being withheld to protect the victim's identity, told police that his relationship with the girl started when he was a teen-ager and she was about 3. He was a neighbor and a baby sitter.
But by the girl's fifth birthday, he was her stepfather and abuser. He later adopted her.
The years of abuse, the girl said in a statement to police, began when she was 3, with "touches."
Over time, the fondling became more frequent - going from twice a month to sometimes twice a week - and more involved, she said. Last summer, she told police, the man attempted to have intercourse with her.
Her aunt said in a telephone interview Thursday that the abuse had begun to take a toll on the girl, now 15. She had started skipping school and was in counseling.
In April, she went to police and told them her stepfather had abused her two weeks earlier. She later recanted, however, Salem Commonwealth's Attorney Fred King said.
She told police she had lied because "she and her mother had been arguing lately, and she wanted to live with her father," King said.
The investigation was closed.
But a call from a social worker the following day, saying the charges might be valid, reopened the case.
When police talked to the girl again, she chronicled years of abuse at the 27-year-old's hands. The molestation occurred in her parents' bedroom while the girl's mother was at work or bowling.
Her stepfather didn't deny her claims.
He told police that he, too, had been a victim of molestation and that he started abusing his stepdaughter soon after he married her mother.
Police charged him with aggravated sexual battery, taking indecent liberties with children, statutory rape and sodomy. The sexual battery charge was dropped in a plea agreement.
"She didn't want to get him in trouble. But what he did was sickening," the girl's aunt said.
Because of the "vileness of the crime and for the victim ... I'd like to revoke his bond and place him into custody," King said.
But the man's attorney, John Gregory Jr., argued that, because the man cooperated with police and gave them a voluntary statement, keeping him in jail until sentencing was unnecessary.
Judge G.O. Clemens agreed. After convicting the man of the sexual offenses and ordering a pre-sentence report, he said the man could be released once his $25,000 bond is secured.
The man will be sentenced Sept. 14.
The victim, who had feared she would end up in a foster home if she told the the truth, is living with her father and his wife, her aunt said.
by CNB