A 59-year-old Summerfield man is in the Marion County Jail after being accused of molesting an adolescent family member for several years.
Eddie Fernandez was charged Thursday with lewd and lascivious behavior on a victim between the ages of 12 and 16 by an offender 18 or older. He’s being held on $10,000 bond.
On Jan. 29, a school resource officer from the Marion County Sheriff’s Office was asked to assist an investigator from the state Department of Children and Families (DCF) with contacting a student about sexual allegations she had disclosed to a school counselor that Fernandez had been inappropriately touching her, according to the sheriff’s office report.
On Feb. 3, a deputy responded to the Children’s Advocacy Center for an interview with the victim that also included the case coordinator and the DCF investigator. During the interview, the victim said Fernandez has been touching her for years on her breasts and “down there,” as she pointed to her vaginal area, the report said.
The victim said she was dancing in her room once and using a speaker that belonged to Fernandez. She said he came into the room and told her if she wanted to keep using the speaker, she would have to give him a kiss. The victim said she refused to kiss Fernandez and he started using his tongue to make sexual gestures towards her, according to the report.
The victim said she knew Fernandez’s tongue gestures were sexual by the way he was “wiggling it around” while he was looking at her. She said she told him it was disgusting and left the room and went into the living room to play a video game, the report said.
The victim said about two weeks earlier, Fernandez called her into his room when her mother and grandmother were food shopping. She said one of her brothers was outside and the other was in his room playing video games. The victim said Fernandez pushed her into the room and blocked the door by standing in front of it. She said he started touching her breasts (over clothes) and squeezing them, according to the report.
The victim said she started screaming at Fernandez to “stop!” She said she was wearing “normal jeans” and a shirt at the time. The victim said she doesn’t remember how she got out of the room, but she ended up back in her room crying, the report said.
The victim said Fernandez has tried to bribe her to take her clothes off, offering her $20, $10 and $5 as recently as a couple months ago. She said there were other occurrences, outside the jurisdiction of Marion County, when Fernandez touched her on her vagina over her clothes and kissed her with his tongue, according to the report.
The deputy spoke with the victim’s mother, who said the victim is a good kid and doesn’t have problems in school. She said the victim would tell fibs about small things. The victim’s mother said she did not notice anything suspicious with Fernandez and the victim, but she was not home at the time of the incidents, the report said.
In a voluntary interview with the deputy on Thursday, Fernandez denied touching the victim on purpose. He said he may have accidentally touched her breasts when she was in his bedroom when he was standing behind her pulling her back. He blamed it on him having, “big hands,” according to the report.
Fernandez said the victim is “in love” with him and this is why she may have made up the allegations. He said he and his wife were planning to move back to Pennsylvania and the victim was upset when she was told she couldn’t go, the report said.
Fernandez agreed to take a polygraph test and failed when asked about touching the victim’s breasts for his own sexual pleasure. He continued to deny the allegation, according to the report.
Fernandez will answer to the charge in Marion County Court on March 16.