Jury convicts Alamogordo man for molesting girl
ALAMOGORDO – An Otero County jury found a 31-year-old Alamogordo man guilty in 12th Judicial District Court Friday of molesting a 4-year-old girl between 2014 and 2016.
The jury found Anthony Anderson guilty of two counts of first-degree felony criminal sexual penetration of a child under 13 years old.
Anderson is jailed at the Otero County Detention Center pending his sentencing hearing that’s scheduled for later this year.
During the two-day trial, a family member testified that she was washing dishing with the toddler in 2016 when the girl told her about Anderson touching her in her genital areas.
After hearing about the incident, the family member talked to medical personnel about it then the medical personnel notified New Mexico Children, Youth and Families Department and the Otero County Sheriff’s Office, according to testimony.
The state represented by Chief Deputy District Attorney Scot D. Key contended that Anderson who was a friend of the girl’s parents molested the girl between January 2014 and September 2016.
During the trial, Key contended that the incidents between Anderson and the girl happened at various trailers in Alamogordo and Tularosa, and while the family was camping in the Lincoln National Forest.
The girl’s parents both testified that they were not aware of anything inappropriately happening between Anderson and the girl nor did the girl appear to be upset or traumatized while in the presence of the parents and Anderson.
Testimony revealed the girl told a forensic interviewer during a safe house interview that the girl believed the incidents between the girl and Anderson would never stop.
Anderson’s defense attorney Todd Holmes contended Anderson never molested the child.
During his closing statement Holmes said there was no physical evidence presented to jurors but only testimony of the girl and the suspicions of family members.
“One of the benefits we have as citizens that you have to prove crime beyond a reasonable doubt,” he said during his closing statement. “We don’t have a system of justice where I can just say something and have it be true. You would know right away when something is wrong.”
During Key’s closing statement, he said it’s hard for people to realize that this type of incident happens in Alamogordo.
“It’s hard to imagine that this happens in Alamogordo, New Mexico, this country and around the world, but it does,” Key said. “It happened many times. The evidence shows beyond a reasonable doubt this was a pattern.” In his closing argument, Key told jurors the drawings made by the child in her forensic interview are like a diary of the incidents that happened to the child from a kid’s perspective.