Former Quaker Hill resident charged with sexual assault
Waterford — An arrest warrant affidavit from town police alleges that former Quaker Hill resident Mario Torres, 54, sexually assaulted a teen girl on several occasions.
On March 20, Torres was charged with first-degree sexual assault and risk of injury to a minor. The affidavit states the victim was aged between 11 and 13 years old at the time of the assaults, and that the attacks took place in Waterford and New London.
Police have been investigating the allegations against Torres since June 6, 2019, when Waterford police Sgt. Roger Reed was contacted by the victim's father. The father told Reed that his daughter was repeatedly assaulted by Torres at his residence at 13 Tyler Place, Quaker Hill, over the course of a couple years.
The victim's father also alleged that Torres had "fled to Puerto Rico because he was collecting Social Security disability income while also working and not reporting it," but that Torres' son resided at the Quaker Hill address.
A detective in the Bronx Special Victims Unit interviewed the victim, who said Torres had sexually assaulted her several times beginning in 2017. The victim said all of the assaults took place in Waterford and New London.
Waterford Police Investigator Raymond Carroll, who wrote the arrest warrant affidavit, found that the home in Quaker Hill matched the victim's description of it in her interview with the New York detective. Carroll also matched Facebook photos and texting conversations to the dates the victim claimed Torres had attacked her, according to the affidavit.
On Dec. 13, 2019, Waterford police executed a search and seizure warrant at Torres' former Quaker Hill home. Investigators were seeking an object that Torres allegedly had used in an assault on the victim. They found what looked to be the packaging for it and collected DNA swabs from it.
On Jan. 17, 2020, the victim came to the Waterford Police Department and provided a DNA sample to compare with samples collected by police. Carroll also interviewed her. She corroborated what Carroll already knew, and disclosed another sexual assault in Torres's car in a Walmart parking lot in Waterford, according to the affidavit.
Police said forensic testing determined that DNA profile from the other swab taken from the packaging "was 20 billion times more likely to have originated from the victim than an unknown individual," according to the affidavit.
Torres pleaded guilty to making false statements in order to receive disabiliy benefits, per a 2010 article from The Day. He obtained $19,585 in disability benefits to which he was not entitled, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office. He was sentenced to up to five years in prison and a maximum fine of $250,000.
