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Office manager says he did not sexually assault male colleague

A former officer manager charged with multiple sexual attacks on a much younger employee said he was off the Island when one of the incidents allegedly occurred.Mr Y, 58, was charged with ten counts of sexual assault on 21-year-old Mr X, but two of the charges have been dismissed.Neither man can be identified for legal reasons.Mr X had testified that between February 15 and June 11, 2009, Mr Y repeatedly molested him with incidents taking place in the defendant’s office, the complainant’s home and a guest house.In each of the incidents, he said Mr Y reached out with his right hand and smiled at him with his left leg shaking despite Mr X’s telling him to stop.The alleged victim said he wanted to kill Mr Y, but did not react to the incidents because he was on parole.Taking the stand in his own defence yesterday, Mr Y told Magistrates’ Court that he was in New Jersey on April 21 when one of the incidents allegedly took place at Mr X’s home.He said he drove Mr X to the complex where he lived on a different date, but denied entering his room at all on that day.While Mr X said that on the drive to the guest house he had remained on his phone, the defendant said the two had a conversation about the quality of his work.“We had some conversation,” Mr Y said. “I can’t remember what was said specifically other than I’m sure some of the conversation was about his performance at [the office].“His supervisor was having some problems, that he was not doing what he was required.”Mr Y refuted claims that he had pushed Mr X onto a bed and fondled him until he was interrupted by a knock on the door.“I didn’t manhandle [Mr X],” Mr Y said. “We were in one of the bedrooms when one of the maintenance men came in the room to do repairs.“The door was wide open the whole time. It was against the wall.”The defendant said the date of another alleged incident fell on a Saturday, when Mr X would not have attended work, and on the date of another incident Mr Y did not attend work because of other commitments.He did tell the court that Mr X had accompanied him on a work-related trip to a local guest house to look at rooms, but denied that anything sexual took place.And on the date of another incident, Mr Y told the court that he didn’t see Mr X at all because he had several appointments in the morning and the complainant left at lunch for a doctor’s appointment and remained out for the rest of the day on the doctor’s orders.He said that when Mr X started work at the office, staff were impressed by his work and attitude, but over time the quality of both fell off, leading to his termination.He said he could not remember the date that he fired Mr X, but said on that day he was leaving the office for a meeting when he saw Mr X’s supervisor upset.“She was upset and disgusted by [Mr X] and his performance throughout the day,” Mr Y said. “She didn’t know where he was.“Leaving to go to the meeting, I observed [Mr X] standing outside the office on the sidewalk talking to another staff member and I told him to see [the supervisor] because she was looking for him.”When Mr Y returned to the office, he was told that Mr X still had not spoken to his supervisor.“I was surprised that she did not see him, so I sent a message to [Mr X], something along the lines of don’t bother to come back.”The trial is scheduled to resume in Magistrates’ Court early next month.