The trial of Edmund Peter Marx, a Hesperus man accused of sexually assaulting a child, will be “one of words, not of physical evidence,” the prosecution said Tuesday.
Marx, 63, has been accused of sexually assaulting a girl on multiple occasions in 2013. The seven charges brought against him include three counts of sexual assault on a child (one of these counts specifies a pattern of abuse), three counts of aggravated incest and one count of tampering with a witness.
A 14-member jury selected Monday heard opening statements and witness accounts on day two of the trial Tuesday.
The victim, now an adult, was a minor at the time of the alleged assaults, said she. She refers to Marx as “Peter.” According to the prosecution, Marx sexually assaulted the girl multiple times, possibly as many as 20 different occasions, at his home in Hesperus. The victim no longer lives in Colorado.
“He told me if I told anybody, he’d kill my brother,” the victim, crying, said Marx threatened. “He said he’d take a gun and shoot him.”
According to the prosecution, Marx on more than one occasion touched the girl inappropriately. The victim testified this happened in various settings in the home. The victim also said Marx kissed her.
“It was like a boyfriend-girlfriend kiss,” she said.
But the defense said there is much reason to doubt the reliability of the victim’s accusations because she has mental disabilities.
Defense lawyer Jake Taufer argued a false confession was wrenched from Marx, just as the victim’s accounts were given a guiding hand from her interviewers.
“There is far more to this case than meets the eye,” Taufer said. “An innocent man admitted to something he didn’t do.
“The interviewers did not ask probing questions,” Taufer said.
Assistant District Attorney Christian Champagne, who is prosecuting the case, played a recording from an interview with Marx.
“I’d tell her I was sorry for what I did to her,” Marx said to Champagne. “I was thinking of myself.”
La Plata County Sheriff’s Office was contacted about the case in 2014 by the Department of Child Protective Services in Texas, where the victim lives. The trial will proceed in 6th Judicial District Judge William Herringer’s courtroom this week.
jpace@durangoherald.com
