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Man arrested on assault, incest charges

Chad Abraham

An Aspen man was arrested Friday and charged with sexually assaulting his own child.The suspect, 33, faces charges of sexual assault on a child by one in a position of trust and aggravated incest. Both are felonies. His name is not being revealed to protect the identity of the victim, who is the suspect’s 5-year-old daughter.The suspect, a waiter, was arrested without incident around 10 p.m. at the Aspen restaurant where he works. He was being held Monday on $25,000 bond at the Pitkin County Jail.The arrest warrant details what the girl told family friends and a caseworker about what the suspect allegedly did. Included in the warrant are allegations that he inappropriately touched the victim and had her touch him inappropriately during overnight visits.The visits started after the suspect and the victim’s mother divorced in 2002, when the girl may have been just 2 or 3 years old.”During the separation and divorce, [the mother] was granted primary custody of her daughter, and [the suspect] had visitation rights three nights per week,” the warrant says.The girl’s behavior changed in October 2003, when “[the victim] started displaying new behaviors, which included getting very bad stomach pains and not letting her mother shut any door. If [the mother] shut [the victim’s] bedroom door, [she] would panic,” according to court documents.In January or February 2004, the woman and girl traveled to New Zealand and stayed with a friend for a month. They then returned to Aspen for two months before returning to New Zealand and Australia in May 2004, “where they resided until traveling to California in May 2005,” the warrant says.It was the daughter of the friend they originally stayed with who first heard the victim’s troubling statements about her father. The friend contacted the mother last May.Another of the mother’s friends, a woman in California, reported similar incidents of the girl talking about the suspect’s inappropriate behavior, the arrest warrant says. On May 23, she and the girl were playing with toy bears, including a “Daddy, Mommy and Little Girl bear,” when the victim told the woman about the incidents with her father.”She interrupted me and she told me, ‘This is a true story. Really it is.’ I said OK, I believe you. She told me that the true story is, ‘She touches her daddy on here.’ (she pointed to her and the bear’s nipples and crotch area),” the warrant says.Last month, Pitkin County sheriff’s Investigator Bruce Benjamin spoke with caseworker Paula Glodowski from the Marin County Department of Health and Human Services in San Rafael, Calif. Glodowski, who had met with the girl in June, told Benjamin that the girl confided in her additional allegations against the suspect.The girl was interviewed again in late June at a child advocacy center in Marin County by a police sergeant from Fairfax, Calif., and Glodowski. The girl denied that she had been inappropriately touched in talking with the sergeant. But “she disclosed to Glodowski that she touched her father,” the warrant says. The interview was videotaped.The incidents allegedly happened in the shower and bed of a residence at 548 1/2 Spruce St. in Aspen. The girl also stayed overnight with the suspect after he moved to Woody Creek. He currently has an Aspen address.The mother did not let her daughter stay with her father in the summer of 2003, “as [he] had been consuming alcohol during this period,” the court documents say.The suspect appeared in district court Monday to be advised of the charges. Judge James Boyd told the suspect that the felonies carry penalties ranging from four years to life in prison, fines of $3,000 to $750,000, a mandatory parole term of five years after prison or 20 years to life on probation as a sex offender.His next court date is Aug. 15.Chad Abraham’s e-mail address is chad@aspentimes.com

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