Girl tells Cumberland jury man sexually assaulted her
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
BY MATT MILLER
Of Our Cumberland County Bureau
An East Pennsboro Twp. mother gave Roman Avadiaev some harsh advice after she allegedly caught him having sex with her 13-year-old daughter in March, a Cumberland County prosecutor said.

"She told him, 'You should kill yourself,'" Senior Assistant District Attorney Christylee Peck told a county jury Tuesday.

"And she gave him a rope to do it."

Avadiaev, 37, a Russian immigrant on trial on charges including rape of a child, did try to hang himself in a closet of his apartment, Peck said, but the woman found him and cut him down.

When Avadiaev asked why she saved him, the mother replied, "I would rather see you go to jail," Peck said.

First Assistant Public Defender Ellen Barry urged the jurors to be skeptical.

In a 30-second opening argument, she cautioned them to consider possible ulterior motives of the mother and daughter who made "salacious" allegations against Avadiaev.

The girl testified that Avadiaev, who followed the proceedings through a Russian interpreter, had been forcing her to engage in sex acts since she was 12.

She said she had tried, and failed, to tell her mother about the abuse.

"I just couldn't say it," the girl testified in a high, thin voice. "I was just too scared. I was really, really scared."

She never looked at Avadiaev. Her mother wept in the back of Judge Edward E. Guido's courtroom.

"You don't like [Avadiaev], do you?" his attorney asked the girl.

"No," the teen replied.

"You and your mother call him a bad man?" Barry asked.

"Yes," the girl said.

"Your mother wants him to go to jail for 100 years, doesn't she?" the defense attorney asked.

"Yes," the girl answered.

Barry claimed the girl, who gave detailed testimony to the jury about the alleged abuse, was nearly mum about any sexual molestation during a March interview with the Childrens Resource Center in Harrisburg and during Avadiaev's preliminary hearing.

"Did your mom ever tell you what you had to say here?" Barry asked.

"No," the girl replied.

The trial is to resume Wednesday.

MATT MILLER: 249-2006 or mmiller@patriot-news.com



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