BRISTOL — A 61-year-old Bristol man last week pleaded innocent to a charge that he sexually assaulted a five-year-old girl.
Kendell Ducharme, 61, a registered sex offender, entered the plea to a charge of aggravated sexual assault on a victim younger than 13 in Rutland Superior Court, criminal division, on Wednesday, Nov. 1. He could face 10 years to life in jail and a fine of up to $50,000 if convicted.
Vermont State Police received a report of the alleged sexual assault on Oct. 29. Officers from the New Haven barracks the Bureau of Criminal Investigation, the Department for Children and Families, Addison Children’s Advocacy Center and the Addison County Sheriff’s Department investigated the complaint and on Oct. 30 police arrested Ducharme at his Estey Road home and lodged him at the Marble Valley Regional Correctional Facility for lack of $10,000 bail.
An affidavit filed in superior court by Vermont State Police Sgt. Henry Alberico alleged that Ducharme, who knows the victim, touched her in her private parts more than once. He had been drinking a lot of alcohol before one of the alleged incidents, he told police. According to the Alberico’s affidavit, the girl told him that Ducharme rubbed her on her private parts. An investigator showed her an “anatomy identification picture and asked Juvenile to show me where her ‘private parts’ were. The Juvenile then marked the vaginal area of the picture with an orange crayon.”
According to the affidavit, after this incident came to light Ducharme’s landlord asked him to find another place to live.
Ducharme’s record of run-ins with the law stretch back into the 1980s.
He is scheduled to have a status conference on this case on Dec. 4 in Addison Superior Court, criminal division.