Peabody man accused of raping child pleads not guilty

SALEM – A Peabody chef accused of raping a 10-year-old girl eight years ago remains held on $1,000 cash bail, after pleading not guilty in Salem Superior Court Tuesday.Jonathan Christo, 48, of 261 Newbury St., Peabody, pleaded not guilty to two counts of rape of a child with force and a single count of indecent assault and battery on a child under 14.Judge David A. Lowy set the bail amount requested by defense lawyer Amanda Barker with the conditions he is not to have any contact with the victim or her family and cannot have unsupervised contact with children under the age of 16. He will also be placed on a Global Positioning System (GPS) monitoring system when he makes bail.Christo is expected to make the bail, but must live with his mother in Bradford until the case is resolved as part of another condition Lowy imposed.Assistant District Attorney Kate B. MacDougall felt a $10,000 cash bail should be imposed given the nature of the offense, the penalty he is facing – life in prison – and his history of defaults on prior operating under the influence of alcohol crimes.She said the charges stemmed from an incident in 1999 involving a friend of Christo?s daughter who claims Christo convinced her to go into a shed on his Lake Street property in Lynnfield between June 1 and Sept. 6, 1999, where he raped and molested her.The victim, who goes to college and now lives in Woburn, disclosed the sexual assaults earlier this year to her mother.Barker, in her argument for the lower bail, cited Christo?s roots in the community, saying Christo has lived in the area all his life, graduated from Wakefield High School, has two adult children, went two years to college and two years to culinary school and has worked as a chef most of his life.She asked Lowy not to impose the GPS monitoring, contending it was not appropriate in the case given the age of the crime, but Lowy insisted it be implemented as part of his decision in setting the $1,000 cash bail.The case was continued to Jan. 14 for a pretrial conference.