BIG COPPITT KEY, Fla. – Two women were arrested on child neglect charges Wednesday in Big Coppitt Key after authorities said they provided a girl with an assortment of alcoholic beverages before a 15-year-old boy raped her in February.
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An arrest warrant from the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office states that Sandra Vivine Suarez Ramirez, 40, and Janessa Marie Pierce, 23, picked the girl up on Feb. 11 from her uncle’s house in Key West and went to a Winn-Dixie liquor store and a gas station to buy alcohol.
Deputies said the girl, whose age was redacted from the warrant, told investigators that “Sandra told them to hide their faces from the camera.”
According to the warrant, after going to Pierce’s home, both women gave the girl Tito’s vodka, Twisted Teas and Captain Morgan’s rum. Authorities said that Suarez Ramirez, who is related to the victim, “would make her drink straight Tito’s vodka shots of alcohol from the bottle.”
The warrant states that the girl told investigators that the 15-year-old boy, Pierce’s brother, was drinking too.
“(The victim) said that Sandra told her that she was going to become a woman tonight,” an MCSO investigator wrote.
Authorities said the boy took the girl to a bedroom where Suarez Ramirez and Pierce were inside. The girl told investigators that the “two left when Sandra told Janessa to leave.”
The boy then raped her, deputies said.
Deputies said they spoke with the two women on Feb. 19.
“Janessa said they did buy alcohol, but it was for them (her and Sandra) and not the teens,” the warrant states. “Janessa said she keeps a bottle of Captain Morgan Rum alcohol in the refrigerator and anyone has access to the alcohol.
“Janessa or Sandra can’t account for the victim or the suspect’s whereabouts saying that they had left to a party in Big Coppitt Key but they did not know where this alleged party was. Janessa and Sandra said they were in their room locking their door.”
Deputies said they also met with the teenage sexual battery suspect at the Department of Juvenile Justice Jail.
“The suspect said he could not remember much because he was drunk, the suspect said that the victim agreed to sexual intercourse by saying yes to him and he did have sexual intercourse with the victim,” the report states.
Deputies said the two women “failed to protect” the girl.
As of Thursday, both were being held in MCSO’s Key West jail facility on a $10,000 bond.