SK man accused of child molestation

A 51-year-old Port Orchard man suspected of fondling his stepdaughter pleaded not guilty to charges of child molestation in Kitsap County Superior Court Thursday.

Carlito Cosca Reynante, a U.S. Postal Service employee, was arrested Wednesday afternoon during his shift at the Port Orchard Post Office, where he has worked for seven years.

He was booked into Kitsap County Jail under one count each of second degree child rape and child molestation. He posted the $25,000 bail the next afternoon.

At his arraignment, Reynante was officially charged with one count of second-degree child molestation, a felony that Judge Ray Roof told him carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and qualifies as a strike offense under the state’s Three Strikes law.

Reynante is suspected of inappropriately touching the victim — who is under 14 years of age — in her bed at least once a week between March and June of this year.

The girl first reported to her cousin, and later her aunt, that her stepfather was coming into her room when he thought she was asleep and touching her both above and beneath her clothing and groping her genitals.

The family members then reported the incidents to the girl’s mother, who confronted her husband. She said Reynante neither confirmed nor denied that he had touched her daughter inappropriately, but soon after the confrontation he moved out of the house.

His trial is set for Feb. 2.

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