By Henry Pierson Curtis, The Orlando Sentinel –
KISSIMMEE, Fla. — All but one of 240 rape charges have been dropped against an Osceola County, Fla., man accused of having sex with his teenage girlfriend, court records show.
Held since mid-June on $1.2 million bail, Charlie Vazquez must remain in the Osceola County Jail because the single remaining charge violates his probation for possession of an empty bag of drugs.
The case began when a motel owner on West U.S. Highway 192 complained that Vazquez brought his pit bull on the property. That’s when sheriff’s deputies learned Vazquez, 25, had been living with his 16-year-old girlfriend who claimed to be an emancipated minor with the rights of an adult.
The girl’s mother also told deputies her daughter was emancipated and that she approved of their romantic relationship.
But, records show, a sheriff’s detective discovered the girl had not been legally emancipated as she claimed on Feb. 12.
After the couple admitted having sex twice a day for 120 days, the Sheriff’s Office did the math and charged Vazquez with 240 counts of sexual battery by an adult 24 years of age or older against a 16- or 17-year-old victim. Last week, though, 239 counts were dropped, and he was charged formally July 26 with one count of sexual activity with a 16- or 17-year-old child by an adult 24 years of age or older, records show.
The formal charge was filed days after the Orange-Osceola Public Defender’s Office filed a motion seeking Vazquez’s release without bail, as the State Attorney’s Office had not indicted or charged him since his arrest June 14.
After his arrest, bail was set at $5,000 on each count for a total of $1.2 million. Only one count remains, with bail set at $5,000, but Vazquez will remain held without bail because his arrest violated his probation for getting busted in February with a tiny amount of cocaine residue in a baggie, records show.
“Oh, I snorted that earlier. The baggie is all that’s left,” Vazquez told a deputy, who searched five occupants of a car stopped for a faulty taillight. “Come on, man, it’s just a baggie. There’s no more cocaine left. Are you really going to charge me?”
Vazquez pleaded guilty to the crime, served two days in jail and received 12 months of probation for possession of drug paraphernalia.
Trial is set for Nov. 13.
