BREVARD COUNTY, Fla. — A child advocacy group is asking a chief judge in Brevard County for a review of current sex crime cases involving minors.
The move comes after an alleged sexual abuse case involving a minor hadn't gone to trial after three years.
The case dragged on so long, the bond expired.
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WFTV legal analyst Bill Sheaffer said this is extremely rare, considering the elements of the case.
The defendant has now been put on pretrial release, and now the alleged victim and her family want to share their story.
“We feel that the justice system has let us down,” said the alleged victim’s mother Ashley Lescure during an interview in November.
Lescure said she’s frustrated over years of delays in the case against the man who is accused of sexually battering her then-12-year-old daughter, who is now 18.
“There's got to be others like us and we want things to be finalized,” Lescure said.
This month, her story led a local child advocacy group to write a letter to the chief judge saying, “Nothing discounts the suffering of courageous children who report their abuse than to represent their cause in such a retrograde manner.”
The letter requests a review of all unresolved sex crime cases involving minors.
Video from the state attorney's office shows that 36-year-old Nathan Struttmann was arrested in 2016 on more than a dozen counts of sexual battery.
Before agreeing to meet with investigators, police said Struttmann sent a text message to the victim's mother, saying he was turning himself in, would corroborate everything and needed help.
During an hourlong interview with a detective, Struttmann said, “I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do, OK?”
Struttman has since changed his legal team three times, racking up at least 10 court delays.
This month, the prosecutor filed a first motion asking to stay on track.
That's all Lescure said she was wanted in the drawn-out case that destroyed her daughter's entire adolescence.
“There's no way that victims, especially minors, should have to live in this pain,” Lescure said.
This is happening despite a state law requiring cases of sex crimes against underage victims to be processed as quickly as possible.
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