New Church man acquitted on child molestation charge

By Linda Cicoira

An elegant 10-year-old girl wore a pink sparkling princess dress with a matching head band Thursday. She looked ready for a fun day at an amusement park.

Instead, the child was in Accomack Circuit Court where she was questioned by Judge W. Revell Lewis, who then determined the 10-year-old was qualified to be a witness because her answers showed she knew the difference between the truth and a lie.

The jury was called in and the girl articulately told the panel that she had been sexually abused by her mother’s friend in 2020, when she was eight years old.

The panel later deliberated and acquitted the accused, 44-year-old Charles Anthony Gaskins Jr., of New Church. Gaskins did not testify. A video showed him telling an investigator that he didn’t know what happened because he was sleeping.

The girl said she was watching TV early in the morning and had fallen asleep on the couch while leaning on Gaskin’s chest. “He started … inappropriately touching me … it really hurt me a lot. I tried to move, but I couldn’t. I didn’t know what to do.”

“When night passed, I told my mom what happened. She wanted me to lie about it. My step-cousin called the cops for me because she had my back,” the girl stated.

The incident was alleged to have occurred early in the morning while siblings and the girl’s mother were sleeping, either in the same room or nearby.

“What happened comes to you on a silver platter from a 10-year-old child,” Commonwealth’s Attorney Spencer Morgan said in closing arguments. “She tried to say ‘stop.’ She couldn’t form the words. That’s being eight years old and too afraid to act.”

Defense lawyer Carl Bundick said Morgan failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the incident occurred. Bundick argued there was no scientific evidence, the child’s story changed several times, and the act would have been physically impossible in the position the girl reported.

A specialist at the children’s hospital in Norfolk evaluated the girl about two months after the incident was alleged to have occurred. She said the child was capable of remembering who and where, but it was possible she would not be as good at remembering the date. The girl incorrectly testified the incident occurred in 2019.

The girl’s mother said she acted swiftly when she heard about the allegations, but that was days later when the child was at her father’s home. The mother said the girl claimed she forgot to tell her. She denied telling her daughter to lie. The mother testified she told her to tell the truth because “the truth will set you free.”