BY MAIRE O’NEILL
maire@losalamosreporter.com
Caution: The content of this story may be disturbing to some readers
Jason Moss, 59, of Los Alamos has been arrested and charged with criminal sexual penetration in the first degree and criminal sexual contact with a child under 13-clothed.
According to an affidavit for an arrest warrant filed in Los Alamos Magistrate Court by Los Alamos Police Department Det. Matt Lyon, Cpl. Jaime Gonzales was dispatched Dec. 27, 2019, to a home regarding alleged criminal sexual contact with a now 14-year old girl six years earlier.
Gonzales interviewed the girl and in his report, said the girl told him she was at Moss’s house with her father six years earlier and she remembered that Moss and her father were drinking. She told Gonzales that Moss asked her if she wanted to play with his Wii gaming console and when she replied yes, he led her into a room and closed the door. She said she thought she saw her father go outside.
Gonzales’s report states the girl told him that Moss had her sit on his bed where he sat alongside her, placing his hand on her leg and slowly moving it up to her private area. The report says the girl stated Moss fingered her under her shorts, grabbed her wrist and put her hand over his clothed penis. Then he allegedly pulled his hand away and rubbed himself through his clothing. The girl told Gonzales she told Moss he was hurting her with his other hand and that he responded that it was okay.
Detective Lyon’s affidavit indicates that during a safe house interview with a trained forensic interviewer, the girl disclosed a sexual assault over her vagina through her panties. The girl said she didn’t report it because she “felt there was some kind of normal to it due to Moss saying he was good friends with her father”. She told the interviewer that only last year had she begun to understand what had actually happened and how it was wrong. She said she became depressed and even tried to commit suicide over the incident, feeling that it was her fault due to her not attempting to stop Moss.
The girl said in the interview that she didn’t want to press charges against Moss due to him being scary. She told the interviewer she believed he sold drugs to her father.
Detective met with the girl’s mother who is divorced from the girl’s father. The mother produced medical records to establish the date the incident allegedly occurred as well as emails from a school counselor stating that the girl prefer to be around her father without his friends being there and an email to the counselor stating that the counselor never brought it to her attention that the girl discussed with her that she felt uncomfortable around Moss and another friend of her father.
On March 10, Lyon interviewed the girl’s father who said he had gone outside the house for about 10 minutes and smoked a cigarette. The father asked if Moss had taken the girl to the bathroom or back room and touched her. The father admitted that he was doing work for Moss for drugs and money. Asked by Lyon if he had ever talked about trading the girl for drugs, the father stated no, Lyon’s report states. The father told Lyon that Moss would make comments about the girl being his favorite saying that she was cute. The father told Lyon that now that he thinks about it, Moss was checking out the girl but he never thought Moss would touch her.
Court records indicate that Moss was served with an arrest warrant by Lyon on Wednesday, March 11. According to the Los Alamos Detention Center, Moss was released on electronic monitoring.