According to the Advocate, Ascension Parish sheriff’s deputies arrested Wendell Sanchez, aged 34, of Gonzales, Louisiana, on charges of first-degree child rape, resisting an officer, property damage and criminal trespassing, as well as drug and traffic offenses, on Monday. He is being held in the Ascension Parish Jail on a bond worth $540,000.
In a Facebook post shared on Tuesday, the Sheriff’s Office said Sanchez’s arrest came after doctors realized that an 11-year-old girl who went to the emergency room on Sunday for treatment of abdominal pain was actually pregnant.
Investigators determined that Sanchez, who had driven the girl to the hospital and was, waiting inside his vehicle, likely had impregnated the girl.
“When deputies arrived on the scene, Sanchez fled the area in his vehicle and then abandoned his vehicle and fled on foot to a nearby apartment complex. Deputies, with the assistance of Gonzales Police Department, located Sanchez hiding in a patio area of a residence,” the post read.
While taking Sanchez into custody, deputies searched him and found drugs and drug paraphernalia, on him, said the post.
