HAVERHILL — A 51-year-old man has been charged with raping a 10-year-old girl when he lived with her and her mother.
Police said Richard Marini, 51, of Haverhill raped the girl in 2010, when she was 10.
The girl recently revealed the rape to a doctor during a visit to a medical center, police said.
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Police said Marini was the boyfriend of the girl’s mother and was living with them when the crime occurred.
Marini was arraigned Wednesday in Haverhill District Court on charges of rape of a child with force and assault and battery on a child under 14. During the hearing, his lawyer described him as indigent, but someone posted the $7,500 cash bail that was imposed by Judge Stephen Abany.
State law calls for a maximum sentence of life in prison for someone convicted of raping a child with force. It calls for up to 10 years in state prison for assault and battery on a child under 14.
The judge approved $1,000 from the court for Marini’s court-appointed lawyer to hire a private investigator. The lawyer said that was essential for Marini’s defense.
Marini, of 1 Driscoll St., must return to court May 7 for a probable cause hearing. The judge also ordered Marini to stay out of trouble or risk being held without bail for up to 60 days, and to have no contact with the victim.
Police said the documents provided by the medical center did not identify the girl’s attacker by name, and that a full investigation was launched after the girl and her father reported the incident to police in February.
According to a police report on file in Haverhill District Court, detectives interviewed the girl in March, in the presence of an assistant district attorney and a victim witness advocate.
Police said the girl told them she was in the fourth grade when Marini came to live with her and her mother in their Haverhill apartment. She told police she had her own bedroom and that in the summer of 2010, Marini woke her and then raped her.
The girl said she did not tell her mother about the rape because Marini had hit her before, though she had not told her mother about those assaults, according to a police report. She said her mother would not have believed her. The report said the girl told police the night of the rape wasn’t the first time Marini had entered her room and touched her in sexual ways, including trying to kiss her.
Police said they interviewed Marini on Wednesday, after he agreed to come to the police station. Police said Marini told them he has been in an “on-and-off” relationship with the girl’s mother for the last four years. He said he did not have much of relationship with the girl and “does not discipline her when she acts up.”
Marini said the girl is depressed, that she does not have many friends and that her mother did much of the disciplining, according to police. He said he tried to help the girl, who he said is not a bad girl, by having his daughter talk to her and that his son gave the girl a skateboard to play with, according to police.
Police said Marini denied touching the girl, said he never entered her bedroom and that the accusations against him were being made in order to keep him and the girl’s mother apart. Police said Marini told them the girl’s father and daughter have been manipulating the girl because they want her mother to lose custody of her.
Marini said he has not seen the girl’s mother in four months but that the woman occasionally spends the night at his sister’s house, according to a police report. Marini told police he is disabled and does not work, and that the girl’s mother was also on disability at the time he lived with her.
