Dad of Neb. teen thought to be incest victim of mother says stepmom was 1st to suspect assault

Dad: Stepmom suspected Neb. teen was abused

OMAHA, Neb. — The stepmother of a suspected incest victim was the first to guess the boy might have been sexually abused by his mother, the boy’s father said Thursday.

The 15-year-old boy’s mother has been charged with first-degree sexual assault, accused of having sex nightly with her teenage son when he was in seventh and eighth grades. The Douglas County Attorney’s office says the 41-year-old woman was released Wednesday on $3,000 bond.

The Associated Press is not identifying the woman, or her son’s father, to protect the boy’s identity as a possible victim of sexual assault.

The boy’s mother did not immediately return a message left by the AP at her Fort Calhoun, Neb., home.

The teen’s stepmother asked the high school sophomore about two weeks ago whether he had been sexually assaulted, the boy’s father said. The boy has lived with his father and stepmother in Omaha for about the last 18 months.

“I suspected something for years,” the man said. “I never thought it was sexual abuse. I thought it could be physical or verbal abuse.

“My wife … just out of the blue asked him, ‘Has someone assaulted you?’ His reply was nothing. His actions and his facial look told the answer.”

He said he and his wife immediately took the boy to a counselor who had worked with the boy in 2008, when the father gained custody of the boy. The teen told the counselor that the abuse occurred while his mother was abusing prescription drugs, the father said. It was the counselor who reported the alleged abuse to police.

Court records show the mother pleaded no contest last year to a misdemeanor after being charged with intentionally violating narcotics laws. The Washington County sheriff’s office said the woman had been trying to fill 15 different prescriptions from seven different doctors for 468 pills of the sleep aid Ambien or its generic equivalent.

The woman was sentenced to one year of probation and ordered to attend Alcoholics Anonymous meetings as part of a deal with prosecutors.

The boy’s father, who was never married to the teen’s mother, said his son seems to have had an emotional burden lifted since reporting the abuse, noting that the boy’s grades have since improved.

“I think the abuse had gone on for a long time,” the father said. “At one point, he was thinking this is how normal people act — that this is what you do with your mother.”

But the father said the 15-year-old is being hounded by an older half-brother — the mother’s oldest son — who lives in Lincoln. The older brother has been asking the boy to change his story, the father said.

“He came home early from school today because his brother got to him, telling him he’s lying and that it’s not true,” the father said. “We don’t know how to get away from that right now.”

The teen also has a younger half-brother, according to the teen’s father and authorities. Officials do not suspect the younger boy suffered any abuse, Douglas County Attorney Don Kleine said Wednesday.

The youngest brother is 5 or 6 years old, the teen’s father said, and is living with his own father.

The mother will be represented by the Douglas County public defender’s office; public defender Tom Riley did not immediately return a message left by the AP on Thursday. A preliminary hearing for the woman has been set for Feb. 8.