AUGUSTA — A jury on Thursday found a Jay man guilty of sexually abusing a girl multiple times over several years in Augusta when she was between the ages of 6 and 12 years old.

Kenneth D. Marin, 61, was charged with sexually assaulting a girl who was an acquaintance of his grandson and often came to his home at the time in Augusta, including for overnight stays. Prosecutors say the girl, whose mother was friends with Marin, considered Marin to be like a grandfather to her.

On their second day of deliberations, jurors at the Capital Judicial Center found Marin, who was indicted by a grand jury last year, guilty on three counts of gross sexual assault, two counts each of unlawful sexual contact and unlawful sexual touching, and one count of tampering with a witness or informant.

The girl said Marin touched her inappropriately and sexually assaulted her numerous times from 2012-18.

The Kennebec Journal does not to identify the victims of sexual assault without their permission.

Assistant District Attorney Shannon Flaherty told the jury that Marin sexually assaulted the girl on a regular basis. He would take the girl along on trips with his grandson, who was about her same age. They’d also spend time at his home, which was under renovation, didn’t have interior walls and had only a sheet that could be dropped down to provide some privacy for anyone using the bathroom.

“This all happened on a regular, ongoing basis,” Flaherty told jurors in her closing statement Wednesday. “It’s important to remember (the girl) is between 6 and 12 years old, mostly on the younger end, when this happened. He was a grandfather figure to her, she trusted him.”

Marin’s lawyer, Darrick Banda, pointed out what he described as numerous inconsistencies and contradictory testimony by the victim. He said there were differences between what she said on the stand in court and in two recorded Children’s Advocacy Center forensic interviews, and in descriptions of the same alleged incidents by Marin’s grandson.

Banda said the differing versions of events mean the girl, the grandson or both weren’t telling the truth about what happened. He said if jurors believe the girl wasn’t telling the truth then her testimony is not credible, which he said was a “full stop” that should lead the jury to find Marin not guilty. He suggested the girl made up the allegations after Marin had stopped taking her on trips and paying for things for her.

“Those two sets of facts can’t exist in the same reality … the truth is not being told,” Banda told jurors. “There is no scientific, forensic, or physical evidence of any sexual assault in this case.”

In addition to the sexual assault charges, Marin was also found guilty of tampering with a witness for allegedly rehearsing and suggesting what his grandson should say about what happened.

The boy, in an interview conducted and recorded by the Children’s Advocacy Center and played in court Monday, said Marin told him there’s no possible way that the abuse could have happened without the boy seeing something. The boy said he’d seen no inappropriate activity by Marin toward the girl. He said anytime the girl was at Marin’s home, he was there too, except for one time she went there alone.

However the boy later took the stand in person and testified that he saw the girl and Marin sleep in bed together often, and admitted he had lied in his interview with the Children’s Advocacy Center because he was worried that Marin, whom he lived with, would get in trouble, according to Flaherty. Flaherty said the boy’s testimony on the stand was consistent with and corroborated what the girl said happened at Marin’s home.

Flaherty said after Marin was accused of abusing the girl, he offered the boy gifts and rehearsed with him on the questions he’d likely get from authorities.

Flaherty said the girl didn’t come forward with the allegations for so long because she cared about Marin, and he had told her if she told anyone about what they were doing he would get in trouble and could lose his job.

The girl eventually told a friend what happened after a teacher in a sixth-grade health class talked about sexual assaults. At the urging of her friend, the girl then told her mother, who reported it to authorities.

The charges were investigated and brought by the Augusta Police Department.