Golden – An 8-year-old girl who has accused her day-care provider of sexual assault took the stand Wednesday but had a hard time telling her story.
“Can you tell me why you don’t want to tell?” asked Deputy District Attorney Krislene Lorenz.
“It makes me have bad dreams,” the girl answered.
Joseph Renander is accused of sexually assaulting six children in his care. Opening statements and testimony in his trial began Wednesday in Jefferson County District Court.
He has been charged with 22 felony counts, including multiple counts of sex assault of a child by a person in a position of trust.
All the alleged victims, including three sisters, are expected to testify at the trial, which could run as long as three weeks.
The girls and their parents will not be identified by The Denver Post because the children are alleged to be victims of sex assaults. All the girls were under the age of 9 at the time of the alleged assaults, which prosecutors said took place between 2001 and early 2005.
Renander’s day-care centers, which he owned and operated in Golden and Lakewood, have been shut down.
During opening statements, prosecutor Lisa Scanga told jurors that Renander committed acts of ultimate betrayal against the children and their parents.
“The very danger they were seeking to protect their children from lurked within the walls of the day care,” Scanga said. “It was the director, Joe Renander.”
Defense attorney David Juarez told jurors that his client has been falsely accused by children whose stories contain contradictions and inconsistences.
The girl who testified Wednesday first confided in her father and stepmother in December 2004 when she visited their home in New York.
“Obviously we were very shocked and surprised,” the girl’s stepmother, a school psychologist, told the court. “She was very matter-of-fact about things.”
The girl said the abuse happened when her mother, who lived in Golden at the time in May 2002, worked at night. She didn’t know who the man was but referred to him as a “babysitter.”
During questioning by Juarez, the stepmother said the girl had visited New York several times since the alleged assault and the allegations had never come up before.
Juarez also questioned the girl about how she came to decide that the man who allegedly assaulted her was named “Joseph.” Juarez told jurors the girl’s mother deduced it was Renander and shared his first name with her daughter.
“I think Jesus reminded me because it felt yucky,” the girl said. “No one (told me), I just knew.”
Staff writer Kieran Nicholson can be reached at 303-820-1822 or knicholson@denverpost.com.
