An Ecuadorean immigrant
charged with sexually assaulting a 7-year-old Peekskill girl told the girl’s father that she was a "seductress" who had fallen in love with him, a Westchester County prosecutor said today.
That conversation,
recorded by the girl’s father, was among the evidence introduced against 24-year-old
Pablo Arpi, whose jury trial began today in White Plains.
Arpi is charged with first-degree course of sexual conduct with a child, a felony punishable by up to 25 years in state prison. He also faces two misdemeanor counts of child endangerment, one each for the girl and her younger brother, who prosecutors say witnessed the attacks.
[...]
Arpi lived in the same house as the girl, and worked with her father as a landscaper. He began touching the girl in September 2007, and it
escalated to violent sexual assaults in front of the girl’s brother, a toddler who would hit Arpi to try to stop the assaults.
The girl’s parents didn’t learn of the abuse until
finding a note from their daughter telling Arpi that she loved him, but used inappropriate language to describe her feelings.
The girl refused to talk about the abuse until her father told her about lie detector tests. She then agreed to tell her mother about the assaults and has given the same account to authorities.
When the girl’s father confronted Arpi, he told the man that
he had kissed her because he was weak, then said
the girl took advantage of him. He also told Peekskill police that
the girl had asked him to have sex with her.
"This is a 7-year-old we’re talking about," Clark-DiRusso said.
Arpi was arrested Jan. 25.
Defense lawyer Jose Muniz told the jury that Arpi said what he said out of fear, because the girl’s father threatened to call police.
"To an immigrant, that’s like saying, ‘I’m going to shoot you,’" he said.
[...]
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