NEW HAVEN, Conn. — A Navy sailor has been charged with sexually assaulting a 12-year-old girl on Independence Day after offering her and her friends alcohol, and two others face related charges for their roles in the encounter, authorities said today.
The girl told police she had sex with one of the men in a truck and sexual contact with the other two inside a house, according to arrest warrants.
The sailors, assigned to the USS Philadelphia, turned themselves in Monday, police said. Gabriel Dominguez, 21, was charged with aggravated first-degree sexual assault and risk of injury to a minor, while Benjamin Boyter, 22, and Keith Douglass, 23, were charged with risk of injury to a minor, police said.
Telephone messages were left with an attorney for Douglass, of Schoolcraft, Mich., and with spokesmen for the Navy, which has a submarine base in Groton, the city where the girl says the attack occurred. It was unclear if Boyter, of Woodruff, S.C., and Dominguez, of Manteca, Calif., had attorneys.
The girl had complained to police, according to arrest warrants. She said she and her friends were walking by a house the night of July 4, 2009, when a man came off a front porch and asked if they wanted alcohol so they went into the yard and served themselves.
The girl said she then had sex with a man named Gabriel in a truck in the driveway. She said she later went inside the house and was fondled by a man named Keith on a couch and had sexual contact with a man named Benji.
The girl identified the men from a photo lineup, authorities said. The men admitted having sex or sexual contact with the girl, but Dominguez said he thought the girl and her friends were between 17 and 20 years old, police said.
The men were arraigned Monday and are due back in New London Superior Court on April 28. Dominguez was being held on a $150,000 bond, and Boyter and Douglass posted bail.
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