An Ocala man was arrested Thursday afternoon after a male victim came forth with allegations of sexual misconduct for the past 15 years.
Wayne A. Vanderslice, 55, was taken into custody and transported to the Marion County Jail. He was charged with two counts of sexual assault and one count of lewd and lascivious behavior, both on a victim under the age of 12. He is being held with no bond and is due in court on June 4 at 9 a.m. to answer to the charges.
In an April 23 interview with a forensic investigator at Kimberly’s Center for Child Protection, the victim at first said that he didn’t want to talk about the allegations, calling them a “gross story.” But he then claimed that the sexual misconduct first started about 15 years ago. And he said his earliest memories of allegedly being inappropriately touched by Vanderslice was when he was five years old and they would drive to the dump together, a Marion County Sheriff’s Office report says.
The victim claimed that some of the alleged inappropriate touching took placed in Vanderslice’s black Isuzu pickup. He said he would sit in the middle backseat and Vanderslice “touched him” while checking to see if his seatbelt was fastened. And he said that Vanderslice told him “not to tell anyone that he touched him,” the report says.
The victim said he and Vanderslice would “dance around” in their underwear, and one point when he was 7 or 8 years old, his sister walked in on them and Vanderslice said, “This is a boy thing” and told to her to go finish helping an unnamed person cook in the kitchen.
The victim said the sexual misconduct either took place at Vanderslice’s home at 15170 SW 39th Circle in Ocala or in his vehicle while driving around the Marion Oaks area. He recalled that when he was 11 or 12, Vanderslice allowed him to operate his vehicle and would allegedly make him touch him while he was driving, the report says.
The victim said that Vanderslice eventually called his father and admitted to the abuse. He said his father then called him and he disclosed everything that had happened.
On Thursday, a Marion County Sheriff’s Major Crimes detective conducted a controlled phone call between the victim and Vanderslice. During the call, Vanderslice allegedly apologized numerous times and at one point admitted the acts were sexual in nature, the report says, adding that Vanderslice said “he did not know why he did what he did and it that it would never happen again.”
Detectives then responded to Vanderslice’s residence, where he allegedly “admitted to inappropriately touching the victim numerous times when he was much younger.” And he admitted to performing sex acts on the victim when was 9-10 years old and having the victim perform similar acts on him, the report says, adding that the “abuse happened every Sunday or anytime he saw the victim.”