It appears the perp got the victims Disfellowshiped!
The State Attorney General has re-opened the botched case.
"The trial for a Jehovah’s Witness elder accused of molesting three girls in 1999 began in a Lancaster County court Monday with lawyers giving opening statements to the jury.
Norman Aviles-Garriga, 45, was charged by the Pennsylvania Attorney General with two counts of aggravated indecent assault and 16 related offenses in connection with assaults alleged by three women who say the abuse happened when they were girls.
Aviles-Garriga is one of five Pennsylvania Jehovah's Witnesses charged by a statewide grand jury with using their positions within their churches to sexually abuse children. The attorney general’s office brought charges against the men in October 2022 and February 2023.
“This case is upsetting to hear and difficult to listen to but once you hear it out it is straightforward,” Assistant Attorney General Angela Sperazza said in her opening statement.
Aviles-Garriga immigrated from Puerto Rico in 1999 and lived with Jehovah’s Witness families in the area as he got established in a church, babysitting their children and eventually becoming an elder, according to charges filed by Attorney General Michelle Henry and statements from Sperazza.
Three girls from the same extended family accused him of molesting them during that time. When two of the girls told their mother about what happened, she did not do anything about it, Sperazza said. In 2010 the girls brought their accusations to the Lancaster County District Attorney’s Office, which declined to prosecute.
At least two of the girls were excommunicated from the Jehovah’s Witness community at least partly because of what Aviles said about them to other congregants, according to Sperazza.
Defense attorney Edwin Pfursich in his opening statements made a point that the District Attorney chose not to prosecute in 2010.
“Mr. (Aviles-Garriga) has maintained his innocence for 14 years,” Pfursich said.
Pfursich said that one of the girls, who was around age 6 in 1999, could have made up a story of molestation and shared it with the other two.
“This case stems from the memory of a 6-year-old when she was sleeping,” Pfursich said.
One of the girls who accused Aviles also accused another Lancaster Jehovah’s Witness leader, Abimael Valentin-Matos, 43, of sexual abuse that she said happened in 2009. The Attorney General charged him in February 2023 with indecent assault of a person under 16 and three related offenses. Valentin-Matos does not have a trial date scheduled yet.
Aviles-Garriga’s trial is expected to run until Wednesday before the jury reaches a verdict."