A man is in jail without bond after police said he sexually assaulted a girl in Seminole County.
Winter Springs Police Department investigators arrested 42-year-old Benjamin James Worthy Sr. Thursday and charged him with sexual battery and false imprisonment on a child under the age of 12.
Worthy had his first appearance with a judge at the jail Friday morning. The charges he’s facing are so serious the judge decided to keep him behind bars without bond.
Many of the details from what a young girl tells police happened to her are too disturbing to report. Much of Worthy’s police report is blacked out.
The girl told police she was playing at a neighborhood playground Wednesday afternoon when a man approached her. She told police when the man yelled at her to get inside his van, she just froze and was afraid to move. She said she feared she couldn’t run away in time.
The girl said her attacker eventually pulled her inside his van and drove her to a Dollar General, where he gave her about $5 to go in and buy some candy. The victim told police the man then drove her to a house she didn’t recognize where the man forced himself on her while choking her – at one point saying “Don’t move until I tell you to.”
On Thanksgiving, police questioned several people in the neighborhood where the alleged attack happened. One of the people they talked to was Benjamin Worthy, Sr., who police said lives in the area. Later on Thanksgiving Day, police arrested and charged Worthy.
When investigators asked the girl if she knew Worthy or had seen him before, she told them she thought he might live with one of her friends.
Worthy remains in custody at the Seminole County jail on no bond and is due in court Jan. 6.