The jury trial of a man accused of molesting a 9-year-old girl began yesterday at the Superior Court, with the prosecution witness telling the court the events leading up to the alleged incident.<\/p>\n
Lolita Catap, who worked as nanny of the victim for two years, said the alleged crime happened on Dec. 19, 2003, when she agreed to let the suspect, Joselito Castro, drop the girl at her grandmother\u2019s house in Chalan Kanoa.<\/p>\n
Catap said that Castro had volunteered to do this.<\/p>\n
Catap said that she and the girl, who is a daughter of her friend, had gone to UIC in San Antonio to bring food to her husband. She said she was supposed to bring the girl to her grandmother\u2019s place in Chalan Kanoa as requested by the girl\u2019s mother.<\/p>\n
She said the defendant, who used to be a close family friend, was at UIC and overheard that she needed to drop the girl in Chalan Kanoa.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe [defendant] volunteered to bring her [to CK] using my car,\u201d she told the court. <\/p>\n
Catap said she had to go somewhere else so she agreed to the offer. Besides, she said she trusted Castro with the child because \u201che\u2019s an old family friend.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI knew him since 1993. I trusted him,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Catap said she had no idea that something bad had happened to the girl until that evening when the girl\u2019s mother came to her place.<\/p>\n
Catap said the girl\u2019s mother was very angry at her and demanded to know who dropped her daughter off at CK.<\/p>\n
Catap said that, based on the mother\u2019s revelation, Castro allegedly kissed and touched the girl\u2019s private parts.<\/p>\n
Catap said her husband called Castro to their house and confronted him over the incident. At that time, she said the girl and her mom were also at their house. Catap said the defendant flatly denied the allegation.<\/p>\n
During her testimony, Catap broke down in tears when she was asked whether she believed the defendant\u2019s claim. She said she initially refused to believe the story but then she realized that the 9-year old girl, whom she knows well, could not make up the story.<\/p>\n
\u201cI believe it. She [the girl] is like my daughter. I believe that he did it. She couldn\u2019t make up a story like that,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The jury trial of a man accused of molesting a 9-year-old girl began yesterday at the Superior Court, with the prosecution witness telling the court the events leading up to the alleged incident.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-84050","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84050","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=84050"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84050\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84050"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84050"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84050"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}