Man accused of trying to sexually assaulting girl in home invasion held on $1 million bond
A man who police said sneaked into a Norwalk home in the pre-dawn darkness and tried to sexually assault a girl is under arrest, facing charges that include home invasion and first-degree kidnapping.
Ilmar “Flaco” Rivera, who also goes by Ilmar Rivera-Zuniga, was in custody Wednesday at the Bridgeport Correctional Center on $1 million bail, prison record show.
Rivera, 22, of Norwalk, also was charged with third-degree assault, third-degree strangulation, criminal attempt to commit aggravated sexual assault and risk of injury to a minor, police said. He was arrested Monday night.
According to the arrest warrant affidavit, Rivera, who lives in the neighborhood and was known to the family only as “Flaco,” had been patching up a hole in her bedroom the night before the Oct. 9 attack. After he finished the first part of the job, he hung out with the girl’s mother and two other men, drinking beer until about 3 a.m., when the mom asked them to leave so she could go to sleep, the mother told police. The three left, and the mother slept on the couch; the girl and her sisters slept in the mother’s room because of the project going on in the girl’s bedroom.
Rivera came back later, reaching into the mother’s bedroom through an opening next to a window air-conditioning unit and touching the girl’s leg, the girl said in an interview. Poking her, he told her to open the door for him, and the girl said no. Her sisters woke up from the commotion, so the girl turned on the television for them, the warrant said.
Rivera then appeared in the bedroom and lay on the bed next to the girl, who pushed him away and moved. He moved next to her again, the warrant said. She took her younger sister to the bathroom and Rivera followed, telling her to give him her sister, the warrant said. She again said no.
The girl put her sister to bed and when she tried to get out of the room, Rivera was “moving from side to side, trying to catch her,” the warrant said. She was able to run out of the room and she ran to the couch where her mother was sleeping, but she could not wake her up. Rivera pulled her away from her mother.
The girl then ran into the kitchen, grabbed the biggest knife she could find and swung it at him, screaming at him. But he grabbed her around her torso and covered her mouth, scratching her face, the warrant said.
He then took the girl to her own bedroom, put her on the bed and got on top of her, according to the warrant. She kicked him away and he grabbed her again, pushing her face against the bed. He reached under her panties and touched her buttocks, it said.
The girl cried and yelled and finally was able to scream very loudly, the warrant said, and Rivera ran out. Her mother woke up and heard someone rush out of the apartment, leaving both slip-on sandals, or slides, behind.
Police later reviewed footage from a neighborhood surveillance camera of Rivera walking toward the family’s home wearing the slides and running back with just socks on at 4:59 a.m., the warrant said.
The girl has a scrape and scratches on her face and chest and hasn’t been able to sleep in her mother’s apartment since the attack, it said.
Police indicated the girl was traumatized by the attack, saying in a news release, “The child has since been released from the hospital, and faces a long path to recovery.”
When police caught up to Rivera, he said only that he had been at the home to do a job, and that a fresh scratch on his wrist was from work.
Christine Dempsey may be reached at cdempsey@courant.com.
