GRAY, Maine — A 15-year-old boy was arrested Friday, accused of raping an 8-year-old autistic girl with whom he lived.
The teenager was charged by the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Department with gross sexual assault and unlawful sexual contact. The boy was being held at the Longcreek Youth Development Center in South Portland on Friday night.
According to a news release, the 8-year-old victim suffers from fetal alcohol syndrome.
Sheriff’s investigators did not say where the alleged attack occurred other than to confirm that the teen and the victim lived in the same household. The 15-year-old was described as a family member.
Sheriff’s officials said the sexual assault occurred at about 6 p.m. Thursday. It was not immediately clear how police learned of the attack.
The 15-year-old has a criminal history, police said. He had been recently charged with indecent conduct after an incident in Augusta, according to the news release. No further information about that crime was available Friday night.
Police are still investigating the case and said the teenager could face more charges.
15 year old with a criminal history.Sad.
The real sad part is what happened to this impaired 8 yr old girl. Too late to learn she should never have been placed in this home with a boy who has a criminal history. He certainly does need help but will he get it? Incarceration [Charleston] isn’t the answer, he needs counseling in house and a lot of it. Is this what Dorothea Dix is being used for these days?
DDPC does not take anyone under 18. Acadia would be the place for him.
Yeah, cause Acadia has such a huge success rate? Are you for real? This hopsital should have been shut down long long ago. I have not seen ONE youth come out of there better off, they always end up much much worse.
???
Take a poll of the kids running around Bangor. Ask them each how many trips they have made to good Ole Acadia, and i am sure you will be shocked. My own son was there seven times, had seven different psychiatrists and seven different diagnosis…so please, i know exactly what i am talking about. As for an investigation…investigate away…I will tell anyone whatever they want to know..
This is a young man in need of some help. The behavior is disturbed and disturbing. He needs to be held accountable or we will all we reading about him in the paper in the future as he goes through the revolving doors of the criminal justice system.
I agree that he needs help, but the 8 yr old needs help and protection first.
The information in the article is limited, but the info available is disturbing. A 15 yr old with a history of indecent conduct and who deliberately preyed on an 8 yr with significant disabilities is someone who may not be able to be helped at all.
I agree that the 8 year old needs help and protection first. The first step for that is getting the perpetrator out of the home. It appears that this has happened because he is at Long Creek. I would hope that treatment for the 8 year old is already in place.
I would wonder why the 15 year old is acting out sexually. What is his background like? I am not saying it would be any excuse, because he would still be accountable for his actions.
bad seed
you joke at the expense of a 8 yr old rape victim, stay classy
I feel sorry for children today. It is a not-so-nice world we are leaving them.
^Why I have a cat instead of a child.
This should be dealt with harshly. This kid is only 15, and I guess the hippies will try to rehabilitate him, but he will be a rapist in the system again, and simply just ruin another girls life with it. Absolutely sickening. If it were my daughter they wouldn’t have to worry about trying him for the crime, they’d need to worry about trying me for brutally beating the little scum to death with my bare fists. Children are out future, and are truly innocent. Taking that away should be a crime punishable by death. The fact that the girl had autism makes it ever so more infuriating to me, but either way, this kid should never know what it is like to be a free adult.
I understand your frustration but we don’t have all the pieces to this puzzle. Your reference to ‘hippies’ is indicative of your lack of education and rational thought. I’m a social worker and have learned over the years that you have to get to the route of the problem. Don’t jump to conclusions.
“It is well established by scientists that psychopaths are born without the capacity for empathy. The parts of the brain and certain connections that are responsible for giving us a conscience are different in psychopaths. Upbringing and childhood experiences will affect other aspects of an individual’s personality but they do not cause this disorder. A psychopath can come from a loving family and have had a good childhood. Ted Bundy is an example. For the rest of us, it’s very important to understand how they function and to know that they will not change, no matter how kind and tolerant we are towards them. If anything, they will take advantage of a well meaning person. They regard compassion as weakness.”
this is the current scientific view among neuroscientists, psychologists and psychiatrists. this information is widely available.
???
there is no data that any scientist established anything like that.you just made that up.
Jumping to conclusions is pretty dumb, seeing how my MASTERS degree took a ton more work to achieve than your 6 month course to be a welfare hand out specialist. Jumping to conclusions is stupid, and so aren’t bleeding heart hippies that put rapists and molesters back on the street and back in homes with more innocent victims…
I’ve dealt with many educated fools.
A friend once said, in discussing a colleague with their Doctorate, “You can have as many degrees as a thermometer and still be incompetent.” Education plus common sense is necessary to be effective in human services.
Making assumptions again. I too have a Masters – social work license is something I acquired years after I graduated. You sound like a very angry man. Hope I never bump into you but doubt we’d ever move in the same circle. I suspect people are much braver on the internet when they can hide behind a computer. Peace, granola and all that good stuff.
Well lets just drop the assumptions about being ignorant to one another and just agree to disagree. I think the main point is the same though, this sort of crime and the people that perpetrate them need to be dealt with more sternly than the judicial system already does. This boy that committed this crime will more than likely be back on the street within the next 5 to ten years, with all the rights in the world to go to college, get a job and basically bury the horrible thing he did in his messed up head. The child that was victimized however is not afforded that. They get to live the rest of their life with that haunting them. Then they have to live with the knowledge that the state and the agencies that are supposed to protect them and have their best interests at heart don’t care enough about them to actually really PUNISH this guy. I know that the usual general consensus would be a short rope and a tall tree, but thats not how things are done these days, and death in my opinion is too good for him. I feel that the judicial system should lock him up for a good long time though, and give him more of a punishment than what he is likely to receive. People that commit these crimes really just get a slap on the wrist unless they are a repeat offender, and only then are they given any real punishment. And no matter what the punishment is, it doesn’t take back the trauma inflicted on the victims of these cases. Nothing ever will, it will be with them for the rest of their lives, and it really pains me that these guys can go in and say they have changed and blah blah blah and get to have their freedom back. While the victims where they were technically free the whole time, they aren’t free at all, and won’t feel that way for the rest of their days. Sexual assault is a crime that even if the perpetrator serves a good long sentence, the victim is still scarred for life and nothing any one can do will change it. We need changes in this states legal system, these crimes against children and handicapped people need to carry a lot stiffer mandatory minimum sentence. And not just sex crimes against the handicapped and children, all sex crimes need to have far stiffer mandatory minimum sentences, hands down, period. Victims of these crimes carry it with them everyday for the rest of their lives, and it must truly be a slap in the face to any victim on a sex crime to see the person that did that to you is back out living a free life doing what ever they want, while they still have to deal with that demon in their head from being a victim of a sex crime for the rest of their days…
I have worked with numerous people with intellectual disabilities who were sexually abused by family members, neighbors, teachers, clergy, staff …… so it’s a sensitive topic for me as well. What kind of person can so callously abuse and exploit the most vulnerable people? People with absolutely no empathy or conscience, and sadly they are around (sociopaths, antisocial personality). The justice system clearly treats these perpetrators too lightly. Don’t mean to sound like a ‘hippy’ but I believe people in prison for pot related offenses should be released to make room for sex offenders. But as a professional, with a strict code of ethics to follow, I need to be objective and fair. I have worked with sex offenders as well. It is not easy.
WJR, we’re not so different after all, at least in this respect. I live in a very rural area as well. We don’t always lock our doors but have big dogs (gentle giants) that would scare the crap out of any intruder (and a few well hidden guns).
I’m surprised to see someone with a Masters degree yelling, calling names, and making both assumptions and insults about a (social work) degree. It might not be your chosen path in life, but why assume that social workers are only responsible or capable of handing out welfare checks? Why assume it’s a 6 month degree? Don’t have access to a University Website or need some help to look up the information? Are all social workers “bleeding heart hippies”? You do realize, I hope, that social workers are not the ones who put people back on the streets?
Such a short paragraph, yet overflowing with rage. It is incredibly dangerous to your physical and mental health, I hope you one day find peace.
I’d be willing to bet William has peace in his heart and utter rage at the things that are continually allowed to happen to people with very little consequence. I was raised with this fantasy that people who did bad things to others would be held accountable and put some place where the rest of us would be safe.
Maybe some day we can stop standing on opposite sides of the “fence” screaming about how stupid the other side is and possibly have some intelligent conversation.
nm
What is your Masters in?
You are correct in only one fractured area. Children are the future. Both these subjects are children, so before you “beat him to death, lets get the whole story.
I hope the “hippies” are successful in rehabilitating you. Your expressed anger appears dangerous to yourself, and possibally others.
I am a 30 year old man, married, both kids are mine, no bastard welfare babies here. I also take care of my MS stricken mother. I go to work and support and protect me and mine, and if I had the means I would help more people. I have been to two funerals this week already, and one more for next weekend. I have been going to too many lately and reading about how my home, this state is quite quickly turning into a cesspool of drugs and violent crime. I assure you, I live rurally, and my doors are locked to protect the puke criminals more than it is to protect me from them. Kick my door in for a home invasion or try to abuse my kids. When I call 911 for them to cart your corpse off I’ll ask them to bring a nice body bag. I hate the hippy faction so much because all these bleeding hearts WILL be the end of our great country…
Do you talk like this in front of your children? ie hate, corpse , bastard
???
Easy bud. Perhaps its time to go to the clinic? You seem way tense. If you’d beat a child to death, you are no better then the child himself, really.
Charleston until he is 18, then str8 to prison, do not pass go, not not collect a life, since you were instrumental in taking the innocence of this poor little girl.
THIS INFURIATES ME!!!! AHHHH!! Why are would you leave a a teen with antisocial personality disorder traits, a history of criminal behaivor in any forum alone with a disabled child, any child for that matter???? Blame the damned adults here. Where the heck is the supervision in this household??? Poor baby, this disturbed boy needs to be jailed for life, as this little girl will be stuck with emotional scars for life. I do hope the state finds her a suitable home where a psychologically screwed up rapist is no longer her sitter. This sickens me.
Let the punishment match the crime. He took away her innocence, take away his freedom. But watch he will probably get three years in a juvienelle detention center and some counseling, released to spend his days as a serial rapist. I hate the way they wrist slap for sex crimes. Age should not be a factor. Rape at any age is not NORMAL, incest on top of that, two maladies no therapist can wave a wand and cure.
Someone needs to look at the whole picture here. If he is doing that at age 15, it was probably done to him.
Let’s see: the female victim suffers from fetal alcohol syndrome, which means mom didn’t give a damn and drank with she was pregnant, and the 15 yr old is a rapist. Does anyone else see anything wrong with this picture?
Unless a petition is signed in that charges this 15 yr old with a felony, which then means the proceedings are open to the public, we’ll never know for sure, but I’d bet my bottom dollar that this “family” gets all kinds of public assistance. Just saying…
it could also be that these two children are foster children or adopted – ”
The 15-year-old was described as a family member.”
That was my first thought. Not blood related.