Brookly man accused of raping step-daughter when she was 8
Brooklyn man accused of raping stepdaughter when she was 8 after she writes college essay nearly decade later describing the alleged abuse
The disturbing accusations of an 8-year-old girl being raped came to light over a decade later when she mentioned the ordeal in a college application.
Now, a Brooklyn jury is weighing the fate of her former stepfather Albert Tarrats, 62, who’s on trial for committing the sex assault in 2003.
“She’s been carrying this burden for quite some time,” prosecutor Anna Krutaya said in closing arguments Tuesday.
“She didn’t tell anyone.”
That changed when the teen, now 19, tried to get into a Florida college two years ago and was asked to describe “what made her who she is.”
In the second paragraph, she made a passing mention of “the crazy part” when her mom got married to her ex-stepdad, evidence shows.
“Toward the end of their marriage he began to rape me,” she wrote. “I never told anyone till later in life but at that point in my life I was scared.”
The mother, who divorced Tarrats seven years earlier and moved to Florida, saw the paper and contacted police.
“She could not not write that essay without describing what this defendant had put her through,” Kurtaya said of the young woman, who took the stand last week.
It was “finally a chance for (her) to unburden herself.”
Tarrats, a retired school custodian, is charged with a single incident in which he allegedly entered the girl’s bed as she slept and raped her. He is facing up to 25 years in prison if convicted.
His lawyer, Ernest Hammer, downplayed the essay’s significance, telling jurors: “It’s her best effort to try to get the attention of the admissions committee.”
He claimed the prosecution is driven by vendetta from the accuser’s mom.
But the prosecutor pointed to more evidence than the teenager’s words alone.
When Tarrats was questioned after his 2012 arrest, he recalled one night when his stepdaughter entered his bed and grabbed his genitals, causing him to cry himself to sleep.
Kurtaya argued that is implausible.
Jurors in Brooklyn Supreme Court will continue deliberations Wednesday.