Alleged child victim of Wyandotte County deputy testifies about repeated sexual abuse
The 14-year-old alleged victim of a Wyandotte County Sheriff’s deputy, who is charged with child sex crimes, testified Friday.
Michael Edward Mastel was charged in April with rape, aggravated criminal sodomy and three counts of sexual exploitation of a child.
The alleged victim was a child known to Mastel through his personal life.
The charges stem from incidents beginning in 2011 and continuing until 2018. The victim testified that she had been abused since she was around six years old.
According to testimony from the alleged victim and a Kansas City, Kansas, police detective who worked the case, Mastel regularly raped the child and touched her inappropriately, once forcing her to perform oral sex.
Both testified at a preliminary hearing in the Wyandotte County Courthouse on Friday.
During the police investigation of the conduct, the detective said, three inappropriate photos of the child were found on a phone used by Mastel. The child testified that Mastel had begged her to allow him to take the photos.
She said she reported the conduct to her sister-in-law last year before going to the police and the Sunflower House children’s advocacy center.
In the months before reporting the sexual abuse, she said she had been interviewed at the Sunflower House about physical abuse from Mastel but denied sexual abuse at the time.
Mastel did not testify at the hearing.
His next hearing is scheduled for September 13.
