Preston pizza place owner charged with inappropriate behavior with underage employee
State police on Thursday arrested the co-owner of M&M Pizza of Preston after a 15-year-old restaurant employee said he touched her inappropriately and made inappropriate comments.
Jose Rojas-Solis, 28, of 3 Depot Road, Groton, has been charged with fourth-degree sexual assault and risk of injury to a minor.
In an Oct. 18 affidavit in an application for an arrest warrant, Preston Resident Trooper Armando Bettini said police on May 5 received a fax from the Department of Children and Families detailing the allegations.
The alleged victim on April 27 had told her mother that Jose "JR" Rojas-Solis had been making inappropriate comments to her at work — like asking if she was turned on by him — and was touching her butt, the affidavit said. The victim also said that when Rojas-Solis brought her home from work, he kissed her in the driveway.
On May 3 or 4, the victim was committed to Nachaug Hospital "for a severe depressive episode," the affidavit stated, and she told a case worker at the hospital that her boss had inappropriately touched and kissed her.
Bettini spoke with the victim after she was discharged from the hospital. She told Bettini that while driving her home from work one night, Rojas-Solis put his hand on her thigh and kept moving his hand up her leg, and that he asked if he made her wet.
The girl said that Rojas-Solis would grab or pat her butt on several occasions while she was working, and said he would wait for her to turn 18.
Rojas-Solis came to the state police Troop E barracks in Montville on Aug. 24 for an interview, the affidavit stated. He denied trying to kiss the victim and said she was the one acting flirty.
Rojas-Solis said that in the car ride in question, the victim made a comment about his relationship with another underage girl who worked at M&M Pizza. He said he put his hand on her leg and, to change the subject, asked, "By the way, do you have any hair down there?"
Rojas-Solis' bond was set at $30,000, and he is scheduled to next appear in court on Dec. 27.
