Wednesday, March 24, 2004
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Wednesday, March 24, 2004 |
| Molestation charges dropped after questions of witnesses’ credibility By JOHN MUNFORD Charges against a 21-year-old man for molesting a young girl have been dropped now that there are questions about the information given by the victim and her stepfather, police said. Claims from the victim’s family that the suspect fled the area after a detective called him for an interview are false, too, said Lt. Col. Bruce Jordan, director of investigations for the Fayette County Sheriff’s Department. The claims appeared in a letter to the editor published in The Citizen last week. The suspect was put on a bus to Florida by the victim’s family two days before they reported the allegations to sheriff’s detectives, Jordan said. In the March 17 issue of The Citizen, the stepfather, Jerome P. Daly, charged that the detective on the case tipped off the suspect to leave the area. He also alleged that the victim’s family gave the detective an address where the suspect could be located, a charge Jordan also flatly denied. The charges were dropped because the investigation revealed “credibility issues” in the statements of the victim and Daly, Jordan said. Because of that problem, detectives decided to drop the warrant they originally filed against the suspect, Jordan said. “The case is still under investigation,” Jordan said. The investigation has become more difficult now that the victim’s family has placed her in therapy in an out-of-state program, Jordan said. That makes it impossible for detectives to have access to the victim for follow-up interviews, he added.
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