Las Vegas Sun

February 12, 2012

Currently: 58° | Complete forecast | Log in

crime:

12 years later, girl spots location of alleged sex assault

By Jackie Valley (contact)

Tuesday, Sept. 7, 2010 | 3:31 p.m.

Metro Police have arrested a man suspected in the kidnapping and sexual assault of a young girl after she recognized the location of the alleged crime 12 years later.

Fermin Ivan Perez, 71, was arrested Thursday and charged with first-degree kidnapping and sexual assault of a victim younger than 16 for the alleged crime that happened in July 1998, according to an arrest report.

The female victim, then 5 years old, was playing with friends at an apartment complex near Desert Inn Road and Boulder Highway on July 12, 1998, when a man allegedly lured her into his car by promising baseball cards, the arrest report stated.

The man put a blanket over the victim's head and drove her to an unknown location, where he is alleged to have sexually assaulted her in a bathroom inside a house, according to the arrest report. The man then dropped the victim off, and she knocked on the door of a nearby apartment to get help, the report stated.

Investigators took DNA from the adult-size shirt the suspect put on the victim before dropping her off, but the DNA sample didn't yield suspect matches at the time, according to the arrest report.

In August, police said the girl, now 17, was in the car with her mother when they passed a church on East Flamingo Road and the alleged victim suddenly recognized the setting.

The girl became upset when they drove behind the church to get a better look at the small house and garage on the property, according to the arrest report.

Metro detectives gained permission from the church's priest to tour the house with the victim and her parents at the end of August, the report stated.

Once inside the home, the victim immediately recognized the layout and positively identified the bathroom before officers opened the bathroom door, according to the arrest report.

Officials used church records to identify who occupied the house during the time of the alleged crime, according to the arrest report. In doing so, they identified Perez as the boyfriend of the church's cook, who lived in the house.

It took the victim less than 30 seconds to identify both the female cook and Perez in photo lineups, according to the arrest report.

Perez admitted to owning a gold 1979 Lincoln at the time of the alleged crime and being at the church house several times, but he denied any involvement in the kidnapping and sexual assault, according to the arrest report.

Discussion: 5 comments so far…

Comments are moderated by Las Vegas Sun editors. Our goal is not to limit the discussion, but rather to elevate it. Comments should be relevant and contain no abusive language. Comments that are off-topic, vulgar, profane or include personal attacks will be removed. Full comments policy. Additionally, we now display comments from trusted commenters by default. Those wishing to become a trusted commenter need to verify their identity or sign in with Facebook Connect to tie their Facebook account to their Las Vegas Sun account. For more on this change, read our story about how it works and why we did it.

Only trusted comments are displayed on this page. Untrusted comments have expired from this story.

  1. By sevenhills
    Sept. 7, 2010
    3:40 p.m.
    Flag

    More reason to legalize public hangings.

  2. By casinokid
    Sept. 7, 2010
    4:01 p.m.
    Flag

    I am glad the church worked with the family and the police, The child was lured away this is one reason I don't follow that trunk or treat thing some churches do because it would be teaching kids its ok to go over to a trunk (Travel trunk) filled with candy, and one day a kid is told come over here I got a trunk full of candy and then they the (Pedophile) shoves the kid inside and leaves concealing the child.

  3. By KillerB
    Sept. 7, 2010
    4:03 p.m.
    Flag

    sevenhills -- put your rope away at least until the DNA test results are in.

    Anyone can accuse anyone of anything. Didn't we learn anything from the 1980s'recovered memory witch hunts?

    "Show me the man and I'll find you the crime." -- Lavrentiy Beria, chief of the Soviet security and secret police under Stalin

  4. By KillerB
    Sept. 8, 2010
    7:36 a.m.
    Flag

    "I believe this girl. Obviously she has been terrorized about this since the age of 5."

    lvelegante -- you believing "this girl" is absolutely irrelevant, since this is not a jury. And the only "obvious" and everything else you're "sure" of is just your imagination filling in the blanks. You'd be a good member of sevenhills' lynch mob, and that's despicable!

    "...how little does the common herd know of the nature of right and truth." - Socrates in Plato's "Euthyphro" (399 B.C.E.?)

  5. By KillerB
    Sept. 8, 2010
    8:48 a.m.
    Flag

    dodgerchuck -- considering the legal fiction behind all those "the priest abused me twenty years ago and I just remembered but I won anyway" lawsuits, the church being ultimately found liable is a given.

    "Makes you feel ashamed to live in a land where justice is a game." -- Bob Dylan "Hurricane"

Post a comment

Commenting requires registration.

Comments are moderated by Las Vegas Sun editors. Our goal is not to limit the discussion, but rather to elevate it. Comments should be relevant and contain no abusive language. Comments that are off-topic, vulgar, profane or include personal attacks will be removed. Full comments policy.

If you would like to submit your comment as a letter to the editor, you may submit it here.

Most Popular

  • Viewed
  • Discussed
  • E-mailed
  • Facebook