SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO) — It’s a disturbing case of an alleged sexual assault on a child that may have gone on for years.
Sioux Falls Police arrested 75-year-old George Wright yesterday, he’s accused of exposing himself and inappropriately touching a girl more than once and police say there may be other victims.
“We had a 14-year-old girl disclose that an older man had touched her,” Sioux Falls Police Information Officer Sam Clemens said.
Police say that older man is 75-year-old George Wright.
According to court papers, the girl, who is now 14 and lives in Minnesota, first reported it late last month, but she says the sexual contact started when she was just 8 years old.
“This has happened over the last, perhaps, six years or so she’d come to visit relatives in Sioux falls and this person or suspect is a neighbor of those relatives, Clemens said.
The girl claims while visiting relatives, she would also visit Wright, who lives across the street. The victim told police he would slap her buttocks.
She also says he felt her breast over her shirt more than one time since the age of 10.
The victim also alleges that on more than one occasion, Wright would masturbate inside his garage with the door open and hit his pickup trying to make loud noises to get her to look across the street.
She also says he exposed himself.
In the court documents, Wright initially denied ever doing that and stated the girl made up the allegations because she didn’t want to be friends anymore.
He also claims the girl, since around the age of 5 has been quote ‘sexually teasing him and flaunting herself in front of him’.
Wright told detectives, “I can say in all honesty there are times she would turn me on.”
And that’s why police are really concerned.
“The one thing that we really want to bring to people’s attention is… There’s really the potential for more victims out there,” Clemens said.
This isn’t Wright’s first run in with the law.
Police have arrested him three times for indecent exposure since 1994.
He’s being held in jail on $100,000 bond.
