A 40-year-old St. Croix man is facing charges after a 12-year-old girl confided to her father that her mother’s boyfriend came into her bedroom at night, laid on top of her and tried to kiss her, according to the V.I. Police Department and court documents.
Luis C. Santiago was arrested on Sunday after surrendering to the police and charged with simple assault and battery domestic violence and first-degree attempted unlawful sexual contact, according to the VIPD. He has denied the allegations.
According to a probable cause fact sheet filed Monday in V.I. Superior Court, VIPD Officer Sarah Velez said the girl’s father contacted police on Nov. 7 after he picked up his three children from school and his daughter told him that her mother’s boyfriend “came into her bed at night and tried to kiss her multiple times and she pushed him off, but he kept trying until she told him that she would tell [her father] and then he got up and told her that he was trying to tell her goodnight.”
The father first brought his daughter to her mother’s residence and told her to tell her mother what happened, according to the fact sheet, and the mother “told her daughter to hush and that Mr. Santiago was upstairs in the apartment,” according to the fact sheet.
The father then traveled to the police station to file a report and showed officers text messages between himself and the girl’s mother “where she stated that she does not want any trouble and that she’ll watch Mr. Santiago closely and offered [the children’s father] her apartment that she is getting in Lorraine Village later this month and that she’ll help him out financially,” the fact sheet stated.
On Nov. 8, Velez took a statement from the girl, who said that a few nights earlier, Santiago came into her bedroom while her mother was sleeping in the other bedroom and lied on top of her while she was on her bed, according to the fact sheet. She said that he “grabbed both her hands and put them behind her back, holding them with his hands and put his face close to her face and tried to kiss her on the mouth, but she moved her face to the side so that he wouldn’t kiss her,” it said.
Nevertheless, Santiago kept trying to kiss her, she said, and promised her an iPhone. She kept moving her face away, was able to loosen her hands from his grip, “and she kept pushing him off her until he eventually got up and told [the girl] that he was trying to tell her goodnight and left her bedroom,” according to the fact sheet.
The girl told Velez that Santiago had tried to kiss her about a month earlier but was not successful. She also said he had “attempted to touch her butt at the beach by picking her up out of the water and then moving his hands down towards her butt” but she pushed his hand away, the fact sheet stated.
The girl said “that she never told anyone about the assault until Mr. Santiago tried to assault her again,” Velez reported.
On Sunday, an all-points bulletin was issued for Santiago, who turned himself in at the Wilbur H. Francis Command about 7:16 p.m. that evening, police said. He was arrested and charged with simple assault and battery domestic violence and was remanded to the custody of the John A. Bell Adult Correctional Facility pending his advice of rights hearing on Monday.
According to the court record, Santiago was released after posting a $1,000 bond.
