11-year-old sexual-assault victim also assaulted 5 years ago
MILWAUKEE (AP) — An 11-year-old girl who was allegedly sexually victimized by as many as 20 people last week had also been sexually assaulted five years earlier, a local newspaper reported Saturday.
Police said the girl engaged in sexual acts with the group Monday in a house on the city’s north side, under the direction of a 16-year-old girl.
The 11-year-old had been assaulted five years ago by a 14-year-old boy during a family visit, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
According to court records, the boy was convicted of first-degree sexual assault and sentenced to one year of probation and intensive treatment. The girl’s father did not believe his daughter’s allegations and sided with the boy, records show.
The girl’s mother died of AIDS and the girl, who is HIV-positive, lives with family, Alderman Mike McGee Jr. told The Associated Press on Friday.
The girl was reluctant to report the earlier assault because the abuser lived in her father’s household and she was afraid she wouldn’t see her father again, prosecutors wrote in 2002.
"Her contradictory need to tell trusted persons and to seek protection from the accused juvenile makes sense," an assistant district attorney wrote at the time.
The 16-year-old’s uncle, Freeman Gurley, 40, and Darnell Chaney, 17, were charged with two counts of first-degree sexual assault of a child in the incident Friday.
The 16-year-old girl was charged Wednesday in juvenile court with four counts of being a party to first-degree sexual assault of a child. A 15-year-old boy was charged with two counts in juvenile court.
Police spokeswoman Anne E. Schwartz said Friday they were still seeking five others in the case.
No child can give legal consent for sex, District Attorney E. Michael McCann said in a statement Friday.
"Whether the 11-year-old child consented or not is utterly irrelevant," he said.