Marblehead teen charged in rapes

LYNN – A Marblehead teenager with a criminal record pleaded innocent in Lynn District Court Thursday to three charges of rape of a child with force.Two of the charges against Joshua Rodriguez, 18, of 29 Bennett Road, stem from reports made to police by a 14-year-old girl and a 15-year-old last December during school vacation. The other charge was brought by a 14-year-old who told police Rodriguez raped her on Feb. 4.Judge James L. LaMothe assigned Rodriguez $25,000 bail for each charge and ordered him held for violating probation conditions from previous court cases. He was also ordered to stay away from the three girls and to not have contact with them. He is scheduled to return to court on March 19.One of the 14-year-olds told police Rodriguez came over to a friend’s home where she was visiting at midnight last Dec. 23. The girl said Rodriguez led her by the arm into a bathroom where he pushed her to the floor, pulled her pajama pants down and raped her. Rodriguez left the house but called the girl the following day and gave the girl what she described to police as an anti-pregnancy pill.Assistant District Attorney Scott Dullea said Rodriguez raped the other 14-year-old on Feb. 4 in a car parked on Round House Road.”She kept trying to hold her legs together and squirm away,” Police Sgt. Marion Keating’s report stated, adding Rodriguez told the girl, “If she told anybody, he’d mess her up.”Describing Rodriguez as “a serial rapist,” Dullea said the 15-year-old girl told police she went to a movie during Christmas vacation with a group that included Rodriguez. She said they smoked marijuana later and she passed out, only to wake up and find Rodriguez “putting his hands and mouth on her breasts.”She told the police Wednesday about the assault after the girl’s mother call police and said her daughter was missing and could be suicidal. Police located her in the organ loft of Old North Church. She was taken to North Shore Children’s Hospital where she told police Rodriguez called her within the last day or two and accused her of talking to police about him.”She said she felt that he was going to come down and hurt her,” she told police.Rodriguez’ attorney, Sierra Rosen, questioned the description of the car one of the girls said Rodriguez was driving and the amount of time that passed between at least one of the incidents and the date it was reported. She also described Round House Road as a semi-public location and disputed whether the assault described by the girl occurred there.”These allegations smack of copy cat junior high girls,” Rosen said.Previous charges against Rodriguez include motor vehicle violations in Massachusetts and New York and drug and breaking and entering charges.