#Felipe Vazquez found guilty on abuse charges after sex with minor

Former MLB pitcher Felipe Vazquez was found guilty of sexual assault charges from having sex with a 13-year-old girl in 2017, reports said Thursday.

A Westmoreland County, Penn. jury found the two-time Pittsburgh Pirates all-star guilty on 10 counts, including statutory sexual assault, sexual abuse of children and indecent assault of a minor under 16, according to Wink News.

But the jury found him not guilty on 10 charges of unlawful contact or communication with the girl, the outlet reported.

The jury asked the judge to see pictures and video of the girl during deliberations, according to Wink.

The victim, now 17 and a Florida resident, was in the courtroom at the time of the verdict, WPXI 11 said. She had testified that she and Vasquez had sex in his car outside her home hours before an afternoon Pirates game, The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported.

Vazquez, arrested in September 2019, had maintained that at the time they had sex he thought the girl was 17, which is the age of consent.

The former major leaguer and the girl had struck up a relationship on social media, with their communications growing increasingly explicit.

In 2019, the girl sent Vazquez a picture of her in her underwear, according to the report.

“Wow look at you,” he said. “Not the little kid I met three years ago anymore.”

Their relationship continued until the girl’s mother found a picture of Vazquez in his underwear on her phone, the complaint against him said.

When police questioned Vazquez in 2019, he initially told them he couldn’t remember the girl’s name. Vazquez also faces criminal charges in Missouri and Florida related to the same girl. The latter cases are pending.