The Great Smoky Mountain Journal
Tuesday, January 01, 2019 03:01 PM
Memphis Man Sexually Assaults Three Year Old
According to the police, at around 7 p.m. on Thursday, the victim and another eight-year-old girl were playing in the courtyard of their apartment complex when Jacobo Mendoza called the three-year-old girl over to him.
She walked a few steps towards him, police said, and that's when he grabbed her by the hand and pulled her across the parking lot to a wooded area along the edge of the property, CBS affiliate WREG reported.
When the little girl screamed, the eight-year-old girl ran to tell the victim's mother, Elsa Velasquez. Velasquez ran towards the parking lot and discovered Mendoza hiding in some bushes behind two cars, police said.
"When I saw the man I was scared because sometimes they have something like a gun," Velasquez said.
That fear didn't stop her from protecting her daughter; Velasquez puled Mendoza away by his ran and he ran off leaving the victim, with her pants down to her ankles, with Velasquez.
Though it has not been confirmed that Mendoza lives near or at the apartment complex, neighbors said they'd seen him around. One man said, "He always seemed like he was a friendly guy."
Velasquez tracked Mendoza down after he ran off, and police said he was too drunk to give a statement.
WREG reported that Velasquez was a Guatemalan citizen. She said she was hesitant to report the crime due to the community's fear of deportation; however, she claimed she was violated at age seven and felt that it was the right thing to do, WREG said.
"I couldn't not denounce him because if he couldn't do it to my girl, he could have done it to another or already done it," Velasquez said.
Mendoza was charged with especially aggravated kidnapping and aggravated sexual battery.
