In Pensacola, Florida, a sexual predator was successfully taken into police custody after he admitted to a pastor that he had sexually abused a child for years. Robert Cota, a 31 year old man, attended his church's event for new members when he approached the pastor at the end of the program.
According to the pastor, Cota raised concerns about the church's guideline book on marriage, gender, and sexual conduct, specifically with the word "incest." After a conversation with Cota, the pastor told him to report himself to the authorities.
According to ABC 3 WEAR-TV, the arrest report stated that the pastor told deputies about his conversation with Cota on Sunday. In a separate arrest in September, the report said that Cota's victim's mother said she recently learned of him and her child having a seuxal relationship. At the time, Cota allegedly became upset and pointed a gun at the victim multiple times. He was then arrested for aggravated assault domestic violence as authorities began investigating the sexual assault and incest allegations.
The report said that during the September incident, Cota and his victim told the mother of the sexual relationship before taking back their statements. During this year's arrest, however, the pastor gave the sheriff's office information on Cota's current address and phone number that he filled out while at the church event, WKRG reported.
The victim and her mother were located at another address. The victim admitted that she had been "having sex" with Cota since she was seven years old and estimated that it had happened about 600 times in the span of several years. During questioning with the deputies, Cota insisted that he was "never physically abusing the victim" and that he would not make eye contact when being questioned. The sexual predator admitted he was not surprised that he was accused of such actions.
According to WND, Cota told his victim that what the law calls sexual abuse was to show affection. He has been booked into the Escambia County Jail on the sexual assault and incest charges and is being held with a $3 million bond.
According to the report titled "Economic & Fiscal Impacts of Child Sexual Abuse in Florida," most cases of child sexual abuse are unreported. In 2012 alone, there were about 67,087 cases of child maltreatment investigated by Florida authorities, of which 2,529 involved sexual abuse. The report said that more children endured the abuse with no intervention.
According to research, sexual abuse victims are more than twice as likely to "spend their working lives sick or disabled, contributing to a substantial loss of income." Child sexual abuse also affects a victim's adolescent years, during which 26% of victims aged 7 to 12 reported that their grades dropped and 48% of victims had below-average grades.
Research has also found that girls who are victims of sexual abuse are three times more likely to drop out of school versus their non-abused peers. Children who are sexually abused are also twice more likely to run away from home. Among children who are voluntarily homeless, more than half or 61% of girls and 16% of boys report having been sexually abused before they left their homes.
