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  Warrant Details Alleged Abuses

By Doug Dalena
Republican-American [Naugatuck CT]
December 8, 2004

NAUGATUCK -- A church organist paid four girls hundreds of dollars to pose for pornographic photos and for two of them to have sex with him over a four-year period, then paid the mother of two of the girls at least $17,000 to keep quiet when she found out about it, according to an arrest warrant affidavit.

The alleged sexual abuse began when one of the girls was 10, according to the affidavit state police filed to get an arrest warrant for Robert A. Nelson. The girls now range in age from 13 to 16, according to a state police news release issued after Nelson's arrest Nov. 19.

Nelson has pleaded not guilty to 11 charges in Waterbury Superior Court and Derby Superior Court. The charges include various degrees of sexual assault, possession of child pornography, employing a minor in an obscene performance, and providing alcohol to minors.

The 50-year-old Naugatuck man met the girls when he worked as an organist at Immanuel St. James Church in Derby, he told police and the Republican-American. Nelson, who had prior convictions for risk of injury to a minor from incidents in 1989 and 1990 in Newtown and Trumbull, also played the organ and gave piano lessons at Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church in Waterbury until church officials learned of his arrest.

The 20-page affidavit, released Tuesday after a judge's order on Friday that clerks black out any information that would identify the victims, includes graphic descriptions by Nelson and the girls of repeated sexual liaisons that the girls said began when Nelson paid them to watch pornographic videos at his Mallane Lane condominium.

Slowly, Nelson coaxed the girls to simulate sex acts while he took pictures, then to take pornographic pictures of him. Eventually, he convinced two of them to engage in sex acts with him at his condominium and other locations, including the parking lots of Derby High School and Ansonia Middle School, the affidavit said.

During a search of Nelson's condominium, which police said he consented to, Nelson directed police to pornographic pictures of two of the girls as well as pictures of himself naked, all taken in Nelson's bedroom. Police seized the photographs, a Polaroid camera, and two pornographic books depicting nude children and teenagers, as well as what police said was a handwritten I.O.U. from one of the victims to Nelson.

Nelson helped police conduct a sting operation against the mother of two of the girls last month, after Nelson said the woman demanded even more money. According to the affidavit, Nelson's attorney arranged for state police to interview him Nov. 12. The next day, Nelson wore a recording device during a meeting with the mother, who was not identified in the affidavit, outside the Party Time Package Store in Ansonia.

The mother, who was charged with extortion, told police she found out about the abuse several months ago when she found pornographic Polaroid pictures of her daughter and the daughter's friend. The mother told investigators she knew the photos had been taken in Nelson's bedroom because she had been there.

She also told police her daughters had become close with Nelson, who drove them to church, bought them clothes and shoes and gave them money.

"He would come to my house and take my kids and go buy them stuff," the mother told police, according to the affidavit. "He would do things with my kids that I couldn't afford to do, like take them to the carnival ... I didn't know at the time, why Bob was giving my daughter money."

The mother confronted Nelson about the photos, and told him she had an audiotape she found under Nelson's bed that she said recorded some of his sexual activity with the girls.

The affidavit said the mother admitted to taking $17,000 from Nelson and promising to retrieve and destroy the tape and the pictures.

Nelson directed his attorney, Ethan Levin-Epstein of New Haven, to approach police after the woman demanded more money.

 
 

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