Louisiana Woman in Custody Battle With Alleged Rapist Accuses Same Man of Also Assaulting Their Daughter

Content warning: The following article contains descriptions of alleged sexual assault.

A Louisiana woman whose ongoing custody battle against her alleged rapist has received national attention has accused the same man of drugging and sexually assaulting their child.

Per WDSU, Crysta Abelseth—who was previously reported to have alleged that she was raped by then-30-year-old John Barnes in 2005 when she was just 16 years old—said in court records stemming from February and obtained by the regional outlet that Barnes, the child’s father, sexually abused the daughter, who is now a teenager.

The daughter, according to Abelseth, informed her that Barnes allegedly gave her drugs and assaulted her on two separate occasions. Furthermore, “evidence of forced entry congruent with sexual assault” was said to have been reported by a local hospital, although WDSU adds that a judge later dismissed those allegations.

Barnes has denied the allegations and has attempted to tie them in with the ongoing custody battle, with a trial having been set to begin on Friday in the Amite City area of Tangipahoa Parish. He has also argued in comments previously given to Fox News that he and Abelseth had consensual sex and that she was using a fake ID at the time. Regardless, the act is illegal under the state’s age of consent law given that Abelseth was 16 at the time and Barnes was 30.

“Instead of bringing me home, he brought me to his house and once we got there and got inside, he proceeded to rape me on his living room couch,” Abelseth said of the alleged 2005 assault in a recent interview with Inside Edition, as seen below.

Barnes was never charged in connection with the alleged rape, although the Tangipahoa Parish Sheriff’s Office said in a statement last month that its department “absolutely dropped the ball” after Abelseth reported the alleged rape to police in 2015.