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Man faces 11 charges after allegedly raping his biological daughter

American Samoa District Court building
Father says he was “possessed by the devil”
ausage@samoanews.com

Pago Pago, AMERICAN SAMOA — A man has been arrested after allegedly grooming and repeatedly raping his own biological daughter over a 3-year period, according to the court affidavit. The alleged crime occurred when the mother was not at home. The victim was 13 years old when the alleged sexual assault started in 2018.

[To protect the victim’s identity, Samoa News will not reveal the names of all parties involved]

When apprehended by police, the defendant immediately admitted to the allegations against him. He blamed the devil for the things he confessed to doing to his own daughter.

The defendant made his initial appearance in District Court this week.

He is charged with 11 criminal counts including 4 counts of sodomy (involving domestic violence), a class B felony, punishable by a term of imprisonment of not less than five years nor more than fifteen years; 4 counts of incest (involving domestic violence) and 3 counts of 1st degree sexual abuse, all class D felonies, punishable by a term of imprisonment for up to five years, a fine of $5,000, but not less than $150 pursuant to 47.0402, or both such fine and imprisonment.

Bail is set at $70,000.

The defendant is scheduled to appear in District Court this morning for his preliminary examination (PX).

THE ALLEGED CRIME

According to the government’s case, it was on Nov. 24th, 2021 evening when a woman contacted the Tafuna Police Substation (TPS) to report that her 16-year-old niece had been raped by the girl’s biological father inside the family home.

Investigators instructed the woman who reported the alleged crime to come into TPS along with her niece (victim) for questioning, which she did.

The reporter was later identified as the victim’s aunt. The victim was named in the court affidavit as “M.A”.

When interviewed by investigators, M.A stated that she cannot recall the month or date when her biological father started sexually assaulting her in 2018. The victim was only 13 years old at the time. She was born in June 2005.

The first alleged sexual abuse by the defendant occurred when his wife left to attend to a family matter in Samoa. The victim told investigators that it was daytime while she was in her bedroom with her two little siblings sleeping next to her on the same bed when her father forced his way onto her bed and allegedly raped her.

Out of fear of her father, the victim didn’t react when he pulled down her shorts and lay on top of her. She knew it was her own father. The victim pretended she was sleeping while her father was raping her. She felt the pain but didn’t want to complain because she was scared of what her father would do to her if she resisted.

On the same day around midnight, the defendant returned to the bedroom where the victim was sleeping and allegedly raped her again. This went on for three days straight until the victim’s mother returned from her trip in Samoa.

The victim said that whenever her father had sexually abused her she would always pretend to be sleep because she was traumatized — unable to look at her father’s face nor push him away.

According to the victim, no further incident occurred in 2018 because her mother was present until 2019. Then on an unknown day and time that year, she was in her bedroom when her father came into the bedroom and allegedly raped her.

This time, according to the victim, she resisted and she finally faced her father and begged him to stop because it was so painful. While she was trying very hard to push him away from her, her father slapped the victim’s hands away and forcibly held her down while he continued to rape her and at the same time threatened to beat her up if she told anyone about his actions.

From that day on, the defendant would sexually abuse his daughter whenever his wife was not at the house. This continued on for the whole year of 2019, up until Nov. 21st, 2021.

On the morning of Nov. 22nd, the victim was not able to take it anymore both physically and mentally and she was having suicidal thoughts so she ran away from her house hoping to keep her father from raping her again. The victim went to her grandmother in Iliili and started opening up to her grandmother and she told her everything that happened between her and her biological father, telling her grandmother that was the reason she ran away from home.

The grandmother told the victim’s aunt everything and the aunt decided to bring this incident to the attention of the police officers.

Two days later on Nov. 24th, the victim’s mother was informed by investigators about the accusations and instructed her to come to the TPS to discuss the matter at hand.

The victim’s biological mother told investigators that her daughter (victim) told her on Nov. 21st about what her father had been doing to her the past few years but she was not able to bring herself to believe what her daughter had said.

The mother further stated to investigators that when her daughter ran away from the house she started doubting herself and was finally able to gather the courage to confront her husband and ask him about the incident and that’s when he admitted to having a sexual relationship with his own daughter.

She told police she chased him out the house; and later that day she received a phone call from police telling her to come to the station regarding her daughter.

On Nov. 25th, police officers went to the defendant’s workplace in Iliili to approach him about the issue. He was not at work on that day. However, later on that same day around 6:55p.m, while police officers were patrolling the Tafuna area near to the defendant’s workplace, a male individual waved down a passing police unit and informed police officers that he needed a ride to the TPS because he heard that officers were looking for him.

The defendant was Mirandized and he waived his rights and told investigators that he understood his rights and he wanted to explain his side of the story.

After a few hours of interrogating the defendant he confessed to committing the sexual abuse, and he further explained that he was heavily intoxicated at the times he entered his daughter’s bedroom and raped her.

He also said that he was possessed by the devil.

The defendant admitted he does not recall whether or not it was 2018 or 2019 — and further  — that he only committed the act once and that he felt guilty afterwards.

The defendant refused to give a written statement to investigators.