A man arrested for allegedly molesting a 9-year-old girl while babysitting her last week reportedly told the girl’s mother “he shouldn’t have watched her child because he knew this would happen,” when confronted about the allegation.
Robert Michael Pearson, 45, was taken into custody on June 2 by Nye County Sheriff’s deputies after they received a report he had allegedly sexually assaulted a minor female in her own home.
When officers arrived at the victim’s residence to investigate the claim, they spoke with the victim, who reportedly told police Pearson held her down on her bedroom floor and rubbed himself on her with their clothes on.
According to a declaration of arrest in the case, the girl’s mother asked Pearson, whom she said she had known for approximately two years, to watch her daughter and another child that afternoon while she got a ride with a friend to the grocery store.
Pearson was reportedly inside the home while the two children were outside cleaning a pool in the backyard when the victim went inside to ask him a question.
The girl told police she sat down next to Pearson on the couch and that’s when he placed his hand on her and began to rub her “private area.”
She said she then got up and ran to her bedroom, where Pearson allegedly followed her and pushed her down onto her bedroom floor and held her legs in the air as he pressed himself against her.
The victim told police she asked Pearson if she could get up for a moment, which he agreed to, and once he had rolled off of her she ran for the door to get out of the home.
She said she ran for the backyard yelling for the other child by name, only to realize Pearson had locked the door to the outside.
After she unlocked it, she said she ran to a neighbor’s where the neighbor called her mother to tell her what just happened to the 9-year-old.
The other child at the home corroborated the girl’s story, telling police the victim was inside the home alone for some time with Pearson before he saw her come out and go straight over to his mother’s house.
The victim’s mother said she immediately returned home from the store after getting a call from her neighbor. She further told police when she called Pearson to confront him about the allegation, which he initially denied.
After interviewing the victim and her mother, a detective subsequently interviewed Pearson, who allegedly did not seem upset that he had been accused of being lewd with the victim.
The arrest report notes it wasn’t until a detective accused Pearson of lewdness with other children that Pearson allegedly became angry and upset. When they returned to the allegation from the 9-year-old, however, the report notes Pearson seemed to calm down.
Pearson allegedly gave officers several contradictory statements about who all was inside the home at the time the alleged incident occurred. When confronted with the fact there may be DNA on the victim after he rubbed himself on her, Pearson allegedly replied there would not be and that “(he) never took his clothes off.”
He was subsequently arrested on a charge of lewdness with a child under the age of 14 and transported to the Nye County Detention Center to be booked into custody.
Upon further investigation, police discovered Pearson has a history of arrest for abusing children.
In March and September of 1991 and January of 1992, Pearson was arrested in Contra Costa County, Calif., on similar charges of willful child cruelty. He was also charged in 1999 in Reno with sexual assault of a child and additionally had a case pulled against him here in Nye County in 2011 for possession of child pornography.
It was also discovered Pearson, who is a convicted felon, had recently changed addresses and failed to report his location to local authorities as required by law. The arrest report notes he has been arrested for failing to register in Nye County in the past and as such was also booked into custody on a charge of an ex-felon failing to register.
Pearson’s bail was originally set at $100,637 and $6,224 for the two offenses, but since his first court appearance his bond has reportedly been revoked.
As of Thursday afternoon, Pearson remained in the custody of the sheriff’s office awaiting his next court date in Pahrump Justice Court.