MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, Fla. – Police arrested a northwest Miami-Dade man on a sexual battery charge Tuesday after a boy said his family’s “lifelong friend” tried to “get him to do something nasty” in May 2022, when he was just 4 years old, according to an arrest report.
The boy, now 6 years old, reported the molestation to his mother this September and, after she asked him to explain what “nasty” meant, explained the sex act Shelly Thomas, now 61, attempted to perform on him, police said.
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Miami-Dade police said at the time of the incident, the boy was visiting his father in South Florida when he was taken to visit Thomas’ wife at their home on Northwest 143rd Street.
During a forensic interview with the University of Florida’s Child Protection Team, the boy said he was in a bedroom watching TV when Thomas came in and told the now-6-year-old to “come here,” and proceeded to expose himself and attempted to perform a sex act on him, the report states.
During an interview with detectives Tuesday, Thomas denied the allegations.
A judge found probable cause to charge Thomas with sexual battery on a minor Wednesday and ordered he be held without bond in the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center.
According to the YWCA, about 93% of sexual abuse victims already know the perpetrator.