Elderly Idaho Man Doesn’t Have ‘Good Answer’ For Child Sex Crime Accusation Involving 4-Year-Old
An elderly Idaho man who was arrested in April on charges of lewd contact with a minor attempted to clear his name with a local publication, by giving them graphic details of the alleged child sex crime.
Idaho Falls resident Charles Cecil Carroll, 85, was reportedly popped by state police on felony lewd contact with a child charges earlier this year, as the New York Daily News notes, but reached out to East Idaho News this past Thursday, June 10, for the first time publicly since the accusations were brought to light.
“Police reports show officers began investigating Carroll on April 6 after receiving information of inappropriate contact with a 4-year-old Idaho Falls girl,” an earlier post from the East Idaho News describes of Carroll’s supposed actions.
Speaking by phone to reporters, the Idaho native expressed that he knew the alleged young victim through the girl’s mother, who lives in the same apartment complex as Carroll and often visited the accused sex offender before the crime reportedly took place.
“Her mother lived in the same apartment complex I did, and I used to see them regularly,” Carroll explained to EIN.
“She used to come over when she was pregnant. When the baby was born, I went to the hospital to visit, and I held that little girl when she was less than an hour old. I loved her as if she were my own.”
On the day in question, Carroll claimed that the child and her mother were both present inside of his home when a robe he had placed over his nude body became undone in the front, fully exposing his genitalia in the process.
Idaho man, 85, says sex crime involving 4-year-old girl "was not done for pleasure" https://t.co/mjVvQM1vgy pic.twitter.com/BLPIZgtZXo
— New York Daily News (@NYDailyNews) June 10, 2017
“My robe had become partially open and I didn’t correct [it],” Carroll confirmed.
According to Carroll, that was when the little girl walked toward him and out of curiosity, made a reach for his private parts.
“She walked over and started handling my genitals,” the old man remarked, “[for] three or four minutes.”
When asked why he didn’t immediately stop the inquisitive child, Carroll claimed not to understand his reasoning at the time of the incident.
“That’s a good question for which I do not have a good answer,” he suggested.
His inability to do so, incidentally, led Carroll to express something he probably didn’t mean to say.
“I did not encourage her. I wish I would have, but I did not.”
Be that as it may, once the girl’s mother reentered the scene, she was able to put an immediate stop to the matter by grabbing her baby girl and exiting Carroll’s residence to call the police.
“Her mother came out and saw her touching my genitals,” Carroll says.
“She grabbed her and left, and that’s when the whole situation came to a head.”
Idaho investigators would ultimately allude in court proceedings, according to case documents, that Carroll allowed the sex crime to carry out for the sake of personal gratification, an accusation the accused strongly denies.
“That is an out-and-out lie. It absolutely had nothing to do with sexual pleasure on my part,” he told reporters.
After paying a bond of $50,000, Carroll was ordered to refrain from contacting the girl or her mother for three years — an edict that would be broken five weeks later, when Carroll connected with the mother of the victim to inquire about payment of a late car note.
“I got a letter [from] the bank [saying they were] turning it over to collections, so I wanted to drive by to see if the car was still there,” Carroll claimed.
As Carroll soon found out, the car was safe and sound — as was the family, who saw Carroll cruise on by that day.
“Evidently they saw me drive by and turned me in,” he admitted.
As a result, Carroll was placed on supervised suspension for a year and ordered to serve a 180-day suspended jail sentence should he break the no-contact order again. Carroll’s next appearance in an Idaho court on the sex crime matter is scheduled for sometime later this month.
[Featured Image by Bonneville County Jail]
