12-Year-Old Girl Used iPod to Report Attempted Rape

After attacker took away her phone, tween found a high-tech way to get help.

ByABC News
July 21, 2010, 12:08 PM

July 21, 2010— -- Left alone with her mother's ex-boyfriend and no access to a telephone, a 12-year-old Minnesota girl found a high-tech way to call for help while bravely fighting off his repeated attempts to rape her.

According to police, on the night of July 10, Raymond Cesmat, 42, confiscated the girl's cell phone after an attemped attack and told her to leave open the door to her bedroom. But when Cesmat left the room for a few minutes, the tech-savvy tween used her iPod Touch, an MP3 player with Internet access, to call for help.

"The juvenile told officers that this night the defendant was flashing a flashlight into her room so she knew he was coming. When he first entered her room, he was naked and tried to pull off her pants. The juvenile said that she kicked him and screamed at him to leave her alone," according to the criminal complaint police filed against Cesmat.

When Cesmat allegedly retreated, the girl, whose name is not being reported because she is a minor, used the iPod Touch to quickly open her Facebook page and look for friends online. She messaged Cesmat's daughter and asked her to contact the girl's mother to tell her to come home, police said.

But just as the girl "was sending that message, she said, the defendant came back in her room naked again and got on top of her," according to the complaint. "This time he got her shorts off, she said. The juvenile stated that she was kicking at the defendant, scratching him, and telling him that she hated him."

Cesmat, who was later arrested and then took his own life while incarcerated, was able to molest the girl with his hand, but the young girl kept fighting, "throwing books from her shelf at defendant's face and was scratching him as much as she could," according to the report.

She was able to draw blood, leading Cesmat to say: "I will use you whenever I want," before then leaving the room again, according to the account the girl gave police.

Figuring he might try a third time, the quick-thinking girl pushed her dresser in front of the door, climbed out her bedroom window and ran to a nearby gas station, where she called police from a pay phone.

The girl's mother, who had been out with a friend, was on her way to the house when police picked up the girl from a nearby elementary school.