{"id":108575,"date":"2015-10-29T16:34:43","date_gmt":"2015-10-29T22:34:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/hesperus-mans-sex-assault-trial-starts\/"},"modified":"2015-10-29T16:34:43","modified_gmt":"2015-10-29T22:34:43","slug":"hesperus-mans-sex-assault-trial-starts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/hesperus-mans-sex-assault-trial-starts\/","title":{"rendered":"Hesperus man\u2019s sex assault trial starts"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Marx\"
Marx<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The trial of Edmund Peter Marx, a Hesperus man accused of sexually assaulting a child, will be \u201cone of words, not of physical evidence,\u201d the prosecution said Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Marx, 63, has been accused of sexually assaulting a girl on multiple occasions in 2013. The seven charges brought against him include three counts of sexual assault on a child (one of these counts specifies a pattern of abuse), three counts of aggravated incest and one count of tampering with a witness.<\/p>\n

A 14-member jury selected Monday heard opening statements and witness accounts on day two of the trial Tuesday.<\/p>\n

The victim, now an adult, was a minor at the time of the alleged assaults, said she. She refers to Marx as \u201cPeter.\u201d According to the prosecution, Marx sexually assaulted the girl multiple times, possibly as many as 20 different occasions, at his home in Hesperus. The victim no longer lives in Colorado.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe told me if I told anybody, he\u2019d kill my brother,\u201d the victim, crying, said Marx threatened. \u201cHe said he\u2019d take a gun and shoot him.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to the prosecution, Marx on more than one occasion touched the girl inappropriately. The victim testified this happened in various settings in the home. The victim also said Marx kissed her.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was like a boyfriend-girlfriend kiss,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

But the defense said there is much reason to doubt the reliability of the victim\u2019s accusations because she has mental disabilities.<\/p>\n

Defense lawyer Jake Taufer argued a false confession was wrenched from Marx, just as the victim\u2019s accounts were given a guiding hand from her interviewers.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is far more to this case than meets the eye,\u201d Taufer said. \u201cAn innocent man admitted to something he didn\u2019t do.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe interviewers did not ask probing questions,\u201d Taufer said.<\/p>\n

Assistant District Attorney Christian Champagne, who is prosecuting the case, played a recording from an interview with Marx.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d tell her I was sorry for what I did to her,\u201d Marx said to Champagne. \u201cI was thinking of myself.\u201d<\/p>\n

La Plata County Sheriff\u2019s Office was contacted about the case in 2014 by the Department of Child Protective Services in Texas, where the victim lives. The trial will proceed in 6th Judicial District Judge William Herringer\u2019s courtroom this week.<\/p>\n

jpace@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

opening statements<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":108576,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[133,866,867,83],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-108575","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-courts","tag-hesperus","tag-la-plata-county-courthouse","tag-mancos"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108575","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=108575"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108575\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/108576"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=108575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=108575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=108575"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=108575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}