BANGOR, Maine (NEWS CENTER) -- Protesters gathered outside the office of Penobscot County District Attorney Chris Almy Monday afternoon, criticizing him for not prosecuting a case of what they say is child sexual abuse against a four year old child. About a dozen people were standing along Hammond Street in Bangor with signs citing child abuse statistics and calling on Almy to "Do his job."
One of the protesters, Robin Dietrich says DHHS did an investigation and substantiated that the abuse happened but Almy refuses to prosecute because of the child's age.
"She told us she was being abused, She told multiple other people she was being abused. DHHS was called, they substantiated abuse. They sent an official letter stating that they had substantiated abuse on behalf of a certain individual and Mr Almy will not prosecute," Dietrich said.
Almy did agree that the four year old child's age is a problem but says it's not the only problem. He says there is no DHHS evidence that he has seen that shows evidence of a crime. And he says there's a custody dispute between the child's parents to consider.
"One of the things we had to consider in this case is the motivation between...of the accusers family. There's a custody dispute going on here and what's the motivation of getting a four year old to say something that may be true may not be true is really something that we have to be careful about. and sometimes there is more to it than meets the eye and we have to make sure that what we're presenting in court is valid evidence," Almy said.
Deitrich says the child's family is pursuing a protection from harassment order in the civil court system. News Center is not naming the person the protesters are accusing because that person has not been charged with a crime and the protesters were not prepared at the protest Monday to provide the DHHS report they say proves there was abuse.
