Mother says girl healthy

“My daughter is safe and healthy,” the mother said in a statement read by her Las Vegas attorney, Jerry Donohue.

The victim, who is now 7, has never shown signs of physical abuse and doesn’t remember the incident, he said.

Donohue held a news conference in front of his downtown office to deliver the mother’s first public remarks since Friday, when authorities say she learned of the assault. The mother, who Donohue didn’t identify, didn’t attend the media event.

Donohue said the mother hired him “to protect her interests.”

His client is a hardworking single mom who was holding down two jobs and working six days a week when the incident occurred, the attorney said. Her daughter was in the care of a baby sitter when the assault took place, Donohue said. He didn’t identify the baby sitter.

“She was trying to make ends meet on her own and thought she was leaving her daughter in the care of a responsible adult,” he said.

The mother had no direct contact with the suspect, Chester “Chet” Arthur Stiles, Donohue said.

Although the mother identified Stiles from images of the videotaped assault, she doesn’t know him personally, Donohue said. Stiles is likely a “friend of a friend” of the mother, Donohue said, but didn’t elaborate.

Authorities are searching nationwide for Stiles, who was declared a suspect in the case on Friday.

Officials have said Stiles is seen on the homemade videotape sexually assaulting the victim, who was under 3 years old at the time.

The 37-year-old Stiles, born in Louisville, Ky., previously lived in Pahrump and Las Vegas and worked for several months as an animal trainer for Siegfried and Roy in 2002.

Stiles also is wanted in connection with the molestation of a then-6-year-old girl in 2003.

The case has garnered national media attention, in part, because Nye County officials on Sept. 19 released images of the victim and an adult male taken from the videotape in an effort to identify them.

The videotape was turned over to police on Sept. 8 by 26-year-old Darrin Tuck, who claimed that he found the tape in the desert several months ago, police said. He told Nye County authorities that he had delayed handing it over because he was afraid.

Tuck was booked into the Nye County jail on Sunday on a probation violation. Nye County officials say they plan to file possession of child pornography charges against Tuck this week.

Donohue said the mother of the victim learned about the assault on Friday, when a friend called and told her that her daughter’s picture was on television. When the mother turned on her TV, she recognized the man on the videotape as Stiles and contacted Nye County authorities, Donohue said.

When asked how the mother could have avoided seeing the intense media coverage of the case, Donohue said she works long hours and didn’t watch television news.

The mother hadn’t watched the videotape of the assault, he said.

“There are some things maybe you don’t want to know. Can you imagine having a little girl and learning that something occurred many years before and you can’t do anything about it to protect her?” he asked.

Las Vegas police have arrested Stiles previously for assault with a deadly weapon, battery, domestic violence, resisting arrest and grand larceny, among other charges.

According to a 2001 arrest report, Stiles resisted arrest inside a market on Buffalo Drive near Flamingo Road. Police were searching for him after a person reported he was loitering around a store and was wanted for a hit-and-run incident, the report stated. Stiles punched the officers and led them on a chase, the report stated.

It took three officers to subdue him and after police handcuffed him, he told one of the officers that in a few more seconds “I would have your gun,” the report stated.

Donohue said he had an idea of what the fugitive Stiles should do now.

“Speaking as a father myself, I wish the guy would dig a hole in the desert and put a gun in his mouth,” he said.