GREENFIELD — A Greenfield resident has been charged with rape after a girl told police the man held her down and forced her to have sex, court documents state.
Justin Miller, 18, 832 Dream March Drive, faces a Level 3 felony count of rape, court records show. He turned himself into police Wednesday afternoon and appeared in court a short while later to plead not guilty to the allegations.
The girl told police she visited Miller’s home in Greenfield over the summer. While they were alone together, he forced himself on her, according to police reports.
The girl told investigators she and Miller sat down to watch a movie together in the living room of his home one afternoon in July. He repeatedly tried to kiss her, she said, and eventually pushed her down on the couch, court documents state.
The girl tried to sit up several times to get away from Miller, but he held her down, she said, telling detectives “no matter she (did), he wouldn’t stop,” according to court documents.
She eventually stopped resisting him “because he was bigger than her, and he was going to get what he wanted anyway,” she told investigators, court documents state.
The girl came to the Greenfield Police Department a month after the alleged incident, records show.
She told police she was compelled to come forward after realizing she hadn’t been acting like herself since the alleged incident, that she’d starting drinking, sneaking out and missing curfew – things she’d never been in trouble for before July, court documents state.
Greenfield detectives interviewed Miller at the police department a few days after the report was made, and he denied the allegations, saying he never forced the girl to do anything and hadn’t had contact with her for several months.
Police note in their reports that Miller gave short, at times contradicting, responses to their questions. When officers asked if the victim had been at his home in recent weeks, Miller told them he couldn’t remember back that far, court documents state.
Miller and the victim both handed their cellphones over to police as part of the investigation. Texts downloaded from the devices show the pair exchanged messages in early July — on the day the victim said the incident occurred – about the girl coming over to Miller’s home to watch a movie, court documents state.
Miller’s family hired Mark Hervey of Indianapolis to serve as the man’s attorney, records show.
Hervey appeared in court Wednesday alongside Miller and asked Hancock Circuit Court Judge Richard Culver to give the teen a low bond, commenting that Miller couldn’t afford much because he is a full-time college student.
Culver set the bond at $10,000 cash, which Miller paid shortly after the hearing concluded. He has since been released from the Hancock County Jail, but he has been ordered not have contact with the victim in the case.
The Level 3 felony count Miller faces carries a maximum penalty of 16 years in prison. A trial date has been set for March.