- May 1, 2024
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A Palm Coast man turned himself in at the Sheriff's Office April 25 on a charge of lewd and lascivious molestation after his 12-year-old victim recorded a phone conversation in which he referred to the abuse.
Aaron Whitley, 42, had been under investigation by the Flagler County Sheriff's Office since December 2016, when the Sheriff's Office took a statement from the 12-year-old victim's father, who she'd told about the abuse by Whitley.
A child protection team spoke to the young girl, who said that Whitley had touched her under her clothes, according to an arrest affidavit. Whitley had been the victim's mother's boyfriend at the time.
The crime happened Nov. 22, the girl said, after Whitley had picked her up from a friend's house and taken her to a store to get candy and other things she'd wanted, an outing that she said was unusual behavior for Whitley.
That evening, she was watching television when Whitley began rubbing her back under her shirt and then touched her breast under her bra, she told investigators. She got up to leave, and Whitley told her he had something to tell her. She sat down next to him, and, as he asked her how she was feeling, he tried to put his hand down the back of her pants, she said.
The girl went to the bathroom to get away from him and then left the house and went to her father's house. But Whitley continually sent her text messages, which she later showed to investigators.
The first text message from Whitley after the crime was one telling her to delete messages from him immediately after receiving them. Whitley texted the girl messages like, "You good?, R u ok , Are we good," and the girl texted back, "making him know that what had occurred was not comfortable for her and she did not want him to do that again," according to the affidavit.
The girl asked him why he'd done what he had, but he avoided the question and told her he wanted to take her on a trip, then asked to speak with her on the phone. She declined, but he eventually talked her into a phone conversation with him. She recorded it using a friend's cell phone.
Recording a person's phone conversation without their consent is generally illegal in Florida, but the state passed a law in 2015 carving out an exception for children who were recording a conversation in which the person being recorded said that they intended to commit, were committing or had committed acts of sexual abuse or physical violence against the child.
On the phone after the Nov. 22 crime, Whitley "kept on apologizing and telling (the victim) that he was scared. He mentions that things like this can change people's lives forever and that she knows what can happen because she watches those shows 'referring to Law and Order,'" according to the affidavit.
Whitley told the girl that he wouldn't do it again, didn't want to go to jail and was leaving the situation in her hands, and that he "respects her and he is leaning to her to protect him because what he did was stupid."
The victim told investigators that Whitley, on other occasions, had touched her inner thigh, grabbed her backside over her clothing, made lewd comments about how she'd look when she was older and talked about his sexual relationship with her mother.
Aaron Anthony Whitley is charged with one count of lewd and lascivious molestation on a child between the ages of 12 and 16. He was released from the county jail on $50,000 bond.
