44. Oak Hill man charged with raping woman when she was 9 years old

Originally posted Tue, 2009-01-20 18:45

Courtesy photo/Jail mug.  Earl Lee Sutton Jr., 34, of Oak Hill, was charged  in January with capital sexual battery on a woman who claimed the sexual attack occurred when she was a child.

OAK HILL -- A 34-year-old Oak Hill man was arrested Monday night after a woman came forward over the weekend with allegations she was raped and sexually molested 16 years ago by the accused when she was 9 years old.

Oak Hill police Chief Guy Grasso said the victim came forward after all this time, telling Sgt. Robert Walker that the unwanted sexual activity by the then 18- to 20-year-old attacker between 1993 and 1994, was now causing problems in her marriage.

"She was very brave," Grasso said this afternoon. "A lot of this stuff goes on and a lot of it is unreported."

The victim said her attacker performed oral sex on her "multiple times over a period of months," according to Walker's report and one time hile she and the man were in his car, he forced her to sit on him and then dragged her to the back of his car and raped her.

The girl was told it wouldn't matter if she screamed because they were in the orange groves and nobody would hear her, the police report states. The girl was warned not to tell anyone of the sexual abuse or she would be harmed, according to statements she made in the report.

Oak Hill police subsequently charged Earl Lee Sutton Jr. with capital sexual battery on a person less than 12 years of age, a first-degree felony punishable by up to life in prison. Sutton was booked into the Volusia County Branch Jail without bail.