Pago Pago, AMERICAN SAMOA — A man accused of having a sexual relationship with his niece is now in custody after being arrested last month.

The defendant made his initial appearance in District Court.

He’s charged with 3 counts of rape and 3 counts of sodomy, all class B felonies, punishable by a term of imprisonment of not less than five years nor more than fifteen years.

Bail is set at $50,000.

THE CASE

On Jan. 11, 2022 about 8:41 a.m, a man waved down a police unit on the Iliili public highway and informed officers that he wanted to file a complaint against the man who was a passenger in his vehicle. The man further told police officers that the man had allegedly raped his 16-year-old niece.

Officers approached the man from the passenger side of the vehicle and immediately placed him in custody before they proceeded to the Leone Police Substation (LPS) for further investigation.

The man who reported the matter to officers on the road was interviewed by investigators about the alleged matter. According to the reporter his mother-in-law had asked to meet him at the church in Malaeimi, which he did —  meeting up with his mother-in-law and his niece (victim).

His mother-in-law told him that the defendant was having a sexual relationship with his niece and he stated that they decided it was best to have a family meeting at their home in Mapusaga Fou.

The reporter explained to investigators that he was so overwhelmed with anger and emotion when he heard about the sexual relationship between his niece and the defendant that he picked up a hammer, and drove to Leone where the defendant lives, and once he got there he woke the defendant up and told him to get into his truck.

He asked the defendant numerous times if what his mother-in-law told him was true, but the defendant denied all allegations. However, when the defendant realized that the reporter was bringing him to police, the defendant got upset and started to get hostile. The reporter stated that he was afraid that the defendant was going to jump out of the vehicle so once he saw the police unit in front of a church in Iliili, he flagged it down.

The victim was interviewed by investigators with the permission of her mother where she provided a verbal and written statement about what happened. The victim did not recall the dates for the first two incidents.

The first, she told police, was when her uncle knocked on her window and climbed into her room where they spent some time together and later had sexual intercourse.

The victim said their next encounter occurred two days later where her uncle knocked on her window again, during late hours, and she let him inside her room. They talked for a moment before they had sexual intercourse.

The third encounter occurred on Saturday, New Year’s Day of 2022 at around 11p.m. Her uncle again knocked on her window and asked if he could be let into her room. The victim let her uncle inside her room where they talked for about half an hour before they had sexual intercourse.

The defendant was interviewed after he was Mirandized where he waived his rights and was willing to talk with investigators about what happened. However, the defendant was not comfortable to speak about what happened in the presence of the female investigator, so he asked the male investigator if he could speak to him alone.

The defendant provided a verbal and written statement to the male investigator regarding the incident between him and his niece.

The defendant stated that the first incident occurred one week before Christmas where he went inside his niece’s room at night and they had sexual intercourse. The second incident occurred two days after the first incident where he went inside his niece’s room at night and had sexual intercourse with her.

The third incident also occurred with the same week when everyone in the household went out for an evening stroll except for him and his niece. The defendant admits that he went inside his niece’s room and had sexual intercourse with her.

After receiving the defendant’s statement, a police major discovered that the defendant had an outstanding bench warrant from District Court. He was later booked and confined at the Territorial Correctional Facility (TCF) pertaining to the bench warrant to await the next court sitting.