A decade-old sexual assault case involving a 5-year-old girl led to an arrest in Palm Beach County

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (CBS12) — A man who has been in the U.S. illegally for more than a dozen years is currently incarcerated in Palm Beach County following a sexual assault that occurred about a decade ago when the victim was just five years old.

Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office deputies arrested Rubio Gomez Lopez on Wednesday after receiving a tip from their counterparts in Martin County. A probable cause affidavit shows the victim told investigators about the incident in late October, saying it happened while she and her mother were staying with a friend and his family.

She recalled that her attacker was one of two brothers living in the Lake Worth home at the time. The victim testified that one morning she woke up on the couch and a young man, who she believed to be in his late teens or early 20s at the time, approached her and pulled down her pants before touching her inappropriately.

Investigators determined that the brother who committed the attack was Gomez Lopez. In court Thursday morning, prosecutors pointed out that Gomez Lopez came to the United States near Tucson, Arizona, in 2012, about two years before the assault.

When questioned by law enforcement authorities, 29-year-old Gomez Lopez initially denied the attack, then changed his story and presented a version similar to the girl’s memories. He told the investigator that his brother was not involved, adding that what he had done had weighed on his mind for the past decade and he wanted to apologize to her for the assault.

Gomez Lopez was booked into the Palm Beach County Jail on suspicion of sexual battery on a child under 12 years of age.

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