A 51-year-old Fort Lauderdale man who's accused of fondling, texting pornography, and sending salacious voice messages to a young girl he’d known for a decade is behind bars in Broward County.
Isabel Villalta knew the family friend since she was about 5-years-old, but when she turned 10 in 2017 he began tickling, hugging, and touching the girl inappropriately. It escalated to sending her pictures of couples having sex and voice messages soliciting the same via WhatsApp until she was 15, according to the arrest report.
She was uncomfortable but afraid to tell her parents despite encouragement from a close friend she’d known through elementary and middle school. That friend told her own mother earlier this year and the mother eventually told the alleged victim’s mother, the report stated.
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The child told police Aug. 9, that she tried to avoid contact with the man who also went by the name Israel Pereira-Villalta. She tried to push him away when he got too close, but she said he was “stronger than me,” investigators said.
The voice messages included Villalta’s professions of love for his “princess” and how he longed to be alone with her to “do it.” The girl said he meant having sex but never said it, he just sent nude pictures of couples having sex, according to the police report.
Villalta sent more than 60 voice messages, texts, emojis, and GIFs of hugging and kissing to the child’s cellphone between April 14 and Aug. 9. There were another 35 deleted messages, detectives found.
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Some of the messages read: “I love you hunny” and “I’m going to make it very good for you, just tell me yes, okay, don’t worry about anything else, don’t be afraid,” the report stated.
When confronted with the evidence during police questioning, Villalta admitted to having “sexual fantasies” about the teenager and knew what he had done was wrong, police said.
He was arrested Friday and is facing 11 charges including lewd and lascivious molestation on a minor and transmitting information harmful to minors, among other counts. He remains in the Broward County Jail on bonds totaling $50,000, records show.
