Slidell Man Sentenced to 80 Years for Sexual Battery Against a Victim Under Age Thirteen

District Attorney Warren Montgomery reports that on Monday December 19, 2022, Nelson Torres, age 39 and of Slidell, Louisiana, was sentenced by District Judge William Burris to 80 years in prison without the benefit of probation, parole or suspension of sentence. A unanimous jury found Torres guilty of sexual battery of a child under the age of thirteen on December 8, 2022.

On October 25, 2019 the Slidell Police Department received a complaint from the victim’s aunt/guardian. She stated that she’d left her niece and one other young child with the defendant, (her live-in boyfriend), while she worked. She stated that when she arrived home she found her niece texting the defendant via a tablet computer. She also saw blood on the victim’s clothes and body. The defendant had left the home.

The victim told police, through a translator, that while she was cleaning the kitchen, the defendant “picked [her] up and carried [her] into the bedroom” and sexually assaulted her. The victim was taken to Children’s Hospital in New Orleans for a medical exam and DNA was collected from her body and clothing. The victim turned over her tablet to police.

The defendant returned home and was taken into custody. When questioned, he chose to remain silent. During the execution of a search warrant, crime scene technicians collected bloodied laundry belonging to the victim and bedding from the room where the abuse reportedly took place. DNA evidence showed that the probability of the DNA found, belonged to the defendant, would be more than double the population of the world.

Examination of the victim’s tablet revealed many messages from defendant’s phone to the victim’s device including instructions from the defendant to "delete messages" and "erase everything."

Assistant District Attorneys Iain Dover and Elizabeth Authement prosecuted the case.