OAN’s Abril Elfi
3:59 PM – Thursday, December 7, 2023
A Celebrity Cruises employee purportedly admitted to law enforcement that he had sexually abused multiple children while on the job.
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An FBI affidavit stated that a youth counselor, Chris John Petino Castor, admitted to molesting several young children at the youth center on board the ship.
A 6-year-old girl at the youth center had told her parents, who subsequently reported it to authorities, that on November 27th, Castor was touching her “private parts” in an inappropriate way, according to an affidavit filed in federal court in Florida on Friday.
Later, the parents and 6-year-old girl went back to the “Camp at Sea” youth center, where she told the program manager about the disturbing incident.
When the ship docked in Port Everglades, she also admitted to a forensic interviewer that Castor had been inappropriate with her while she was distracted and playing a video game. Castor touched her “where the pee comes from,” she said.
According to the affidavit signed by special agent M. Alexandra Montilla, the crew member “told law enforcement that he was aware and understood that he knowingly touched [a] Minor Victim in the vicinity of her vagina.”
“He also admitted to the inappropriate sexual touching of other minor children that were in his care at the Youth Center, on multiple occasions, while consciously hiding his acts from the Youth Center’s security cameras,” the affidavit stated.
The affidavit said that even though his specific actions cannot be seen from the youth care’s footage, the video that was captured “is [still] consistent with the minor victim’s statement and shows Castor’s hand reaching into (the victim’s) lap, in the vicinity of her vaginal area.”
Castor also claimed that he had touched at least three other children inappropriately “in their vaginal area, in some cases making skin-to-skin contact.”
The youth counselor has been charged in federal court with abusive sexual contact of a minor under 12 and is scheduled to appear in court for a bond hearing on Friday.
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