A California man is jailed in Lawrence County , charged with sexually assaulting a 12-year-old Greene County girl he met on the internet and took to a motel.
Bernardo R. Tapia, 43, a registered sex offender from Santa Clara, California, is charged with two counts of rape, two counts of child molesting and two counts of strangulation. He is being held on $400,500 bond at the Lawrence County Jail, since the alleged offenses happened there.
During an Oct. 1 court hearing, a public defender was appointed to represent Tapia and a Dec. 18 pretrial hearing was scheduled.
According to a news release from the Greene County Sheriff’s Office , the agency received a missing-person report from the 12-year-old’s family on Sept. 23. They told police they learned she had connected with an older male on the internet and plans had been made via Snapchat for the man to pick the girl up at her residence.
The news release said Tapia took the girl to a Bedford motel and raped her. She returned home the same day she went missing. Three days later, Indiana State Police located Tapia in Elkhart and took him into custody.