Tavernier man faces 15 counts of child molestation
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Rafael Castellanos faces 15 felonies for allegedly molesting a young disabled girl.
A Tavernier man arrested in Polk County on Sept. 21 for allegedly molesting a young girl in the Keys was officially charged Thursday with 15 felonies.
Rafael Castellanos, 64, is accused of molesting the girl, who is disabled, while she was immobilized; at the time, she had casts on both her legs following surgery.
Thursday in Circuit Court Judge Luis Garcia's court, Assistant State Attorney Colleen Dunne filed six counts each of sexual battery by someone in familial or custodial authority and sexual battery on a child under age 12, and three counts of lewd or lascivious molestation.
The charges include allegations of various episodes of sexual abuse from May 2007 until this past September.
The Monroe County Sheriff's office says the girl told her mother of the alleged abuse, at a house on Coconut Row in Tavernier where Castellanos was living, on Sept. 12. Agents with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement later arrested Castellanos in Lake Wales. He was extradited to the Keys on Oct. 7 and remains in jail in lieu of $350,000 bond.
Detective Linda Mixon with the Monroe County Sheriff's Office led the investigation.
