An Abbeville teenager said “sexy” behavior by an 8-year-old girl led him to sexually assault her last year, said Henry County Sheriff William Maddox.

Sheriff’s investigators arrested 19-year-old Johnny C. Lewis Jr. Thursday and charged him with repeatedly assaulting the girl at her home over several months in 2006, Maddox said in a statement.

Lewis has confessed to committing the crime, Maddox said, but his story was hard to believe.

“He told us a lot of stuff,” Maddox said. “His reason for doing it was that she was flaunting herself in front of him or flirting ... that she was acting sexy in front of him. It’s just sickening when you have this happen to anybody, but when it comes to kids and a child ... she’ll have to live with that the rest of her life.”

Investigators charged Lewis with three felony counts of first-degree rape and six felony counts of first-degree sodomy, according to a statement from the Henry County Sheriff’s Department.

Lewis, of Henry County Road 115, is being held on a $900,000 bond at the Henry County Jail.
Sheriff’s investigators were assisted in the case by the Henry County Department of Human Resources and the Southeast Alabama Child Advocacy Center.

Liz Martin, the program director at the child advocacy center, said they offer counseling for the parents of abused children, along with the children. Martin said behavior issues, including anger, often occur in young victims of sexual crimes. Each victim often requires an individualized treatment plan.

“There are a lot of factors that go into what each child would need like the relationship to the offender and the severity of the abuse,” Martin said. “The younger the child the more they really don’t understand what’s happened to them. It’s our view if we can help the children up front then it may not fester over a long period of time.”