Father charged in 2020 sexual assault of 5-year-old daughter
A Pecos man has been charged with criminal sexual contact with a minor, nearly a year after police were first notified of the sexual assault involving his 5-year-old daughter.
Lester Ortiz, 45, was arrested March 12 and booked into the San Miguel County Detention Center on one count of second-degree criminal sexual contact with a minor.
The sexual assault was first reported to New Mexico State Police on March 29, 2020, after the girl told a relative that Ortiz had touched her privates, according to a criminal complaint filed in San Miguel Magistrate Court.
The girl told investigators she’d been asleep in her bed before waking up to find Ortiz touching her vagina. She told him to stop, and she told police that Ortiz apologized, saying he “thought she was mommy,” according to the complaint.
During a June 2020 interview, Ortiz told police he’d been drinking that night, and that he’d laid down in the bed next to his daughter. Ortiz admitted to touching the girl’s vagina, and said he stopped when she told him to.
However, Ortiz told police he never said he’d mistook the girl for her mother. He said he was drunk, but that he remembered it happening and that he regrets his actions, according to the complaint. He further told investigators that he needs help, and that anyone who does something like that to a child should be punished, adding that he wanted to go to jail because he thought it would be good for him.
Fourth Judicial District Attorney Tom Clayton told the Optic his office received the case in the fall, and because of the young age of the girl, the case was reviewed by an investigator before charges were filed.
During a March 15 hearing, Judge Christian Montaño set an unsecured $25,000 bond for Ortiz. He was released from SMCDC later that day and placed on house arrest with a GPS ankle monitor. The court also ordered that Ortiz cannot have any contact with the girl, or any witness in the case.
Ortiz is scheduled to appear in Magistrate Court April 27 for a preliminary hearing.
