GAINESVILLE, Fla. – A convicted felon was behind bars Wednesday after police said he sexually assaulted two young girls and held them hostage in their apartment.
According to the Gainesville Police Department, on April 11, 35-year-old Jimel Alexander Adams was babysitting two 9-year-old girls who were having a sleepover in an apartment in Gainesville.
Adams was dating the mother of the 9-year-old girl who lived in the apartment and was left in charge of the girls when she left the house.
Police said Adams, wearing only his boxer shorts, walked into the room where the girls were sleeping in the middle of the night and told both girls to take off all of their clothing and started touching both girls on their private parts.
The mother of the second girl said she wasn't aware that her daughter was at the house but wouldn't have dreamed something like this could have happened there.
"I had no reason to feel like my daughter would've been in any harm staying down there," the mother, who wants to stay anonymous, said. "People keep telling me not to blame myself because it's not my fault but in the same sense, part of me feels like I failed or something, because I was supposed to protect her."
That same girl tried to climb out of a window to escape but was pulled back into the apartment and forced onto a bed by Adams, police said.
As this was happening, the mother of the girl who lived in the apartment came home and confronted Adams about why he was in the girls' room, officials said.
Adams told the mother that he was just giving the girls a blanket and when the mother left the room, police said Adams pulled out a gun, put it to the girls heads and told them if they told anyone he would kill them.
Police arrested Adams four days later and charged him with two counts of aggravated assault, false imprisonment of a child under 13 to commit lewd and lascivious behavior and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon.