- April 16, 2024
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A 37-year-old Palm Coast man was arrested in North Carolina April 4 on charges of sexually molesting his 12-year-old stepdaughter.
The North Carolina Violent Fugitive Task Force arrested Bryan Loveland, a resident of Palm Coast's Ryan Drive, in Fayetteville, North Carolina. He is being held at the Cumberland County Detention Center awaiting extradition to Flagler County, according to a Flagler County Sheriff's Office news release.
The 12-year-old victim reported the crime in February, and told investigators that one incident had occurred the previous Christmas.
Two other people saw Loveland grope the victim and kiss her on the lips, according to Loveland's arrest report. On another occasion, a friend's father walked in while Loveland was molesting the victim, according to the report.
The victim told a deputy that Loveland had also tried to get her to have sexual intercourse with him. She said she was afraid to report the abuse because she was afraid that if Loveland went to jail, the family would lose their house and their pets.
One witness, whose name is redacted in the arrest report, told a deputy that on one occasion, she recalled Loveland "flirting with me, flirting with the little girl."
The witness told deputies that Loveland was "'not acting' like a father, but more like a 'boyfriend'" to the 12-year-old, and was "grabbing (the victim) on her buttocks, hips, breasts and kissing her on her lips and neck," as the girl tried to "push him off of her," according to the report.
That same day as that incident, someone confronted Loveland about the abuse, and he got into a truck and crashed it on Rymshaw Drive. He was charged with driving on a suspended license and leaving the scene of an accident with property damage. He'd been convicted in 2010 with DUI causing serious bodily injury.
In February, after the victim reported the molestation, Loveland called the detective working the case, and said he wanted the detective to close his case out because "he and his family want the investigation to be over so that they can live their life," according to the arrest report.
Loveland also "asked me what would happen to me if he contacted my supervisors and told them that I had battered him at his residence," the detective wrote in the arrest report.
In the Sheriff's Office news release, Flagler County Sheriff Rick Staly said he was "proud of all agencies involved in bringing this man to justice.”
“Thank you to the U.S. Marshals and the North Carolina Violent Fugitive Task Force for the joint effort in locating and detaining this pervert,” Staly said in the news release.
