Man found guilty of 2019 sexual battery allegations against girl in St. Tammany Parish

Raeven Poole
·1 min read
1

ST. TAMMANY PARISH, La. (WGNO) — A man has been found guilty of 2019 allegations of sexual battery in a St. Tammany Parish.

According to the St. Tammany Parish District Attorney’s Office, in July 2019, deputies with the St. Tammany Parish Sheriff’s Office responded to a Mandeville area business on a complaint of inappropriate touching of a juvenile by a customer.

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The customer was identified as now 45-year-old Kerling Tony Ruiz-Cardona.

“She sometimes accompanies her mother to work. On one such occasion, the victim was making herself breakfast in the kitchen of her mother’s workplace when a customer entered the kitchen. He came up behind her, pressed his body and genitals against her, stroked her arm, kissed her cheek, and slid his hand through an opening of her overalls and into her underwear while saying something that she could not understand. She pushed him away and he retreated after smirking at her,” the district attorney’s office stated.

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According to the teen’s mother, a similar incident happened a year prior.

Testifying on his own behalf, court documents stated that Ruiz-Cardona made the claim that the victim’s family reported him because he started going to a different store for building materials instead of from their business and that they also wanted him deported back to Honduras.

After a 17-minute deliberation, Ruiz-Cardona was found guilty on charges of sexual battery and indecent behavior with a juvenile.

Ruiz-Cardona faces a possible prison sentence of 10 years for sexual battery and seven years for indecent behavior.

Sentencing is set for July 31.

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