By: Patti Weaver
(Stillwater, Okla.) — A 47-year-old Stillwater man jailed on $50,000 bail has been ordered to appear before a judge Monday on a charge of sexually abusing a young girl in the neighborhood when he took care of her while her mother was running errands.
Richard Byron Abbott could be given a prison term of 25 years to life if convicted of abusing the child between Aug. 1, 2017, and May 31, 2018, when she was 6 years old and 7 years old, court records show.
When Abbott was interviewed by Stillwater Police Detective Sherae LeJeune, “He advised he was a victim of sexual assault as a child and he would not do the same to a child,” an affidavit alleged.
“Richard did admit that he brought (the girl) into his bedroom and closed the door where they were alone. He said he only brought her in his bedroom to ask if his two sons were playing well with her,” the affidavit alleged.
“He did admit that it was inappropriate to seclude (the girl) in his room and close the door, but insisted he did not sexually assault her. He also admitted to wiping (the girl) after she used the restroom because she refused to wipe herself due to sensory issues,” the affidavit alleged.
The alleged sexual abuse of the girl was reported by her mother after she found the then 8-year-old touching herself on Oct. 24, 2018, before going to sleep, the affidavit alleged.
Asked by her mother why she was doing that and if anyone had done that to her, the girl “replied that she was not supposed to talk about it,” the affidavit alleged.
When her mother told her she could tell her anything, the girl “then disclosed that Richard had touched her vagina,” the affidavit alleged.
During a forensic interview at the Saville Center in Stillwater, the girl said, “Richard tells her to come with him into his bedroom where they do ‘stuff,"” the affidavit alleged.
“On one of the occasions he offered her chocolate to get her to go into his bedroom with him. She said he closes the bedroom door. They lie on the bed and talk and he touches her privates,” the affidavit alleged.
“She drew a picture of what she identified as a penis and advised that was what Richard touched her with…Next to her drawing, she drew a frowning face and stated, ‘I should never have let him do that,"” the affidavit alleged.
“She said Richard touched her buttocks on top of her clothes with his penis and told her not to tell anyone because it was a secret. She said the incidents she recalls happened when she was six or seven years old,” during the daytime, the affidavit alleged.
She said “she was unable to tell her mother what happened because she was scared someone would do something and Richard was present when her mother was there,” the affidavit alleged.
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