FAYETTEVILLE — “He acted like I was his.”

Thus the 16-year-old girl tearfully testified before Fayette County Circuit Judge Paul Blake Monday in the trial of a Deepwater man accused of 96 sex-related crimes against the girl and her 13-year-old sister during 2005 and 2006.

Larry A. Clement, 56, was indicted last May on 16 counts each of first-degree sexual assault and second-degree sexual assault and 32 counts each of first-degree sexual abuse and sexual abuse by a parent, guardian or custodian. His trial began Monday.

Prosecutors rested their case Monday afternoon, and Clement’s defense was to commence at 8:30 Tuesday morning.

According to witnesses for the state, including both alleged victims and those who have assisted in their mental and psychological treatment, the girls have suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder since their alleged ordeal.

“I was scared. He was always cussing and hollering and would push me into him,” said the older sister, adding that Clement would frequently touch her breasts and vaginal area underneath her clothing. The younger sister later gave similar testimony.

Under cross-examination by Pineville lawyer Charles “Chuck” Mullins, Clement’s attorney, the older victim conceded that Clement would “scream, yell and throw things,” and threatened to kill the victims’ maternal grandmother with whom they would frequently visit in Oak Hill. The grandmother was Clement’s girlfriend at the time.

Both sisters pointed out to Mullins that they were of the Apostolic faith and always wore skirts that reached down to their ankles. As each of them respectively departed the courtroom following testimony, they could be seen with therapeutic squeeze-balls in their hands — stress-relieving measures suggested by their therapists.

Dr. Aditya Sharma, who diagnosed the girls with PTSD and treated them for such, described “flashbacks and nightmares” of sexual molestation that they have endured.

According to Sharma, the older sister told him that she attempted suicide via overdosing with pills on at least 12 occasions and labeled her symptoms as “classic PTSD.”

“’Daddy, I have something really hard to tell you,’” the father of the girls recalled his older daughter telling him last January when he came home from work around midnight.

“She said that her ‘Poppa Bear’ (Clement) had been touching her private parts. When dawn broke, we went and got (the younger daughter from the grandmother’s residence).”

When questioned by Mullins, the father declared that he had never exchanged an unkind word with Clement. It was Mullins’ contention that the girls’ father felt animosity toward Clement after Clement financially assisted the father’s wife in filing for divorce. The couple later reconciled and remarried.

Pressed by Mullins over his decision not to get his younger daughter as soon as the older daughter made her revelation about Clement’s purported actions, the father stated that he didn’t want Clement to “leave for Mexico.” He added that Clement had “Mexico tapes” and feared that he might attempt to leave the country.

“I wanted to see justice done,” he emphasized.

Blake was compelled immediately after lunch Monday to issue a “forthwith” subpoena for the grandmother at Mullins’ behest. According to Mullins and his investigator, she has been thus far uncooperative and unresponsive in the attempts by the defense to serve a subpoena on her.

Mullins indicated that Clement will ultimately testify in his own defense.

— E-mail:

mhill@register-herald.com