By Andy Sevilla

A 17-year-old girl has come forward and accused a San Marcos man of sexual assault after seeing news reports earlier this month detailing her alleged abuser’s assault on a separate 12-year-old girl in Kyle.

Michael Casey Batton, 20, was arrested Friday and charged with aggravated sexual assault of a child, a second-degree felony, stemming from the complaint by the 17-year-old victim.

Batton was previously arrested June 26 and charged with three counts of aggravated sexual assault of a child after police say he met up with a 12-year-old Kyle girl he met on a social media website and had sexual relations with her on three separate occasions last year.

The 17-year-old victim, who was 16 years old at the time of her alleged sexual assault last July, told investigators she and Batton were friends and often would sit in his vehicle by the river at Five Mile Dam Park in Kyle, according to Batton’s probable cause affidavit used to secure an arrest warrant issued by Hays County Justice of the Peace Beth Smith.

The 17-year-old indicated that one day last July the two were in Batton’s car at the park when he climbed into his back seat and asked her to join him, the affidavit said. The girl said she told Batton she did not want to join him in the back seat, but he assured her “nothing was going to happen,” the affidavit said. 

Eventually, after noticing Batton appeared to be getting mad that she wouldn’t join him in the back seat, the 17-year-old girl told investigators she climbed into the back seat as well. That’s where Batton allegedly sexually assaulted the girl despite her asking him to stop, the affidavit said.

“The child victim related that she tried to ‘jerk away’ and she repeatedly told Michael Batton to stop, but he continued,” the affidavit states. “The child victim indicated that she tried to squirm away and hit and scratch Michael Batton and at some point her body ‘went limp.’”

After the alleged assault, the victim was crying and was told by Batton that she needed to look presentable before he could take her back home,” according to the affidavit.

In the first reported assault case, Batton allegedly met up with a 12-year-old girl after meeting her on the social networking site MeetMe.com in 2013. 

MeetMe is similar to Facebook or Twitter, where people can go online and make new friends. MeetMe, however, provides users with a list of people who are online and uses GPS to identify who is nearby and how far away they are located. Users of MeetMe must be at least 13 years old and a freshman in high school.

The 12-year-old victim, who was too young to use MeetMe according to its terms of service, told investigators she sneaked out of her Kyle home after everyone in the residence fell asleep and first met up with Batton at a nearby gas station in December. 

That night, the two went to a park near Wallace Middle School before driving to the Walgreens at the FM 2770 and FM 150 intersection. It was there where the two got into Batton’s back seat and he “got on top of her and she just kind of stayed there and didn’t know what to do,” according to court documents.

The two engaged in sexual activity that night and then at a date just after Christmas and again on New Year’s Eve, court documents state.

Batton, who was apprehended on June 26 in that case and held under $75,000 bail, bonded out of jail hours after first being arrested. 

Batton currently is being held at the Hays County Jail under a $150,000 bond on the second reported sexual assault. 

The Hays County Sheriff’s Office credited media coverage of Batton’s first sexual assault arrest as a catalyst for a second alleged victim to come forward.

The Hays Free Press first reported on Batton’s arrest on July 2. Two Austin news stations broadcast the matter on July 4, according to their websites.

“The mother of the current (17-year-old) victim saw the news, which empowered her 17-year-old daughter to come forward and file the complaint,” the sheriff’s office said in a statement.

Authorities are asking anyone who believes they may have also been victimized by Batton to contact the Hays County Sheriff’s Office and file a report.