A 36-year-old man has been arrested after being accused of raping a 14-year-old girl, a foster child, since she was in 5th grade.
Republican Sen. Joanne Brown, the vice chairperson of the legislative committee on health, sounds off and is calling for a second oversight hearing for Guam Department of Public Health and Social Services’ Child Protective Services division on its process for foster care placement.
A foster child and foster mother on April 18 filed a criminal sexual conduct complaint to the Guam Police Department against Ike Andon Elickios, 36.
According to a magistrate’s complaint filed in the Superior Court of Guam, he is accused of raping a 14-year-old girl, a foster child, since she was in fifth grade.
The most recent incident occurred on March 31 while the victim was asleep. Then, she awoke to the sound of her door opening, when Elickios walked in and groped her.
Court documents state another recent incident was in January 2023, where Elickios touched the victim with his hand.
Elickios admitted to GPD that he entered the victims bedroom on March 31, after he had consumed about 12 cans of “Natural Ice” beer. He also admitted to touching the victim inappropriately.
Elickios said that he thought the victim was his partner, was drunk and was not aware he did those things, according to charging documents.
He was arrested and charged with first degree criminal sexual conduct as a first degree felony, second degree sexual conduct as a first degree felony, and second degree criminal sexual conduct as a first degree felony.
This comes three days after the 37th Guam Legislature held an oversight hearing for the DPHSS’ CPS division, which discussed the process for foster care placement. It was called by Democrat Speaker Therese Terlaje, the chairperson of the legislative committee on health, after requests were made by Republican Sens. Telo Taitague and Joanne Brown.
The plea followed when a foster child accused 32-year-old Ryan Joshua Cruz, a now former foster parent, of molesting them. He was already facing sexual assault charges dating back to 2018.
Prior to his March arrest, Cruz was also arrested and charged six months before being accused in September 2022 of sexual assault against a 17-year-old boy. The victim alleged he has been doing this since he was four years old.
Cruz denied the allegations, according to Pacific News Center files.
Brown told PNC that she is worried about the rape case, reported less than a week after the oversight hearing.
“The concerns are these cases that have come up,” said Brown. “There may be other cases. As was mentioned the other day, everyone is saying why just this one case, well here we are with just this one case in such a short time period where there is a second case. There may be more that have yet to be reported of children in the government system that have been harmed in this way. That is where the concern is and we want to make sure that we have safe procedures in place to properly review anyone and everyone participating in the family environment of these children and at the same time we want to make sure that this sort of thing doesn’t happen again. But in this particular case we are seeing where there’s smoke, there’s fire and we need to go track that down.”
She is requesting a second oversight hearing following the reported incident.
“As a result of this, I am demanding that a second oversight hearing be held so that we can have (Art San Agustin), the director of DPHSS, come in and respond on behalf of his department,” Brown shared. “Ultimately, he’s accountable and responsible to explain how these types of circumstances can happen. That is the request I am making to Speaker Terlaje to hold a follow up oversight hearing because it is very disturbing to hear of another case where a child may have been sexually assaulted or harmed that should have been in the care of someone that is going to be able to take care of them and not put them in situation of harm.”
She said she plans to send a formal demand by early next week for a second oversight hearing to be held.
“As a policy maker, I’m very very concerned and disturbed to hear this information and I’m sure many of us in the community are,” Brown said.
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