By JOE SEELIG

SEBRING — A Lake Placid man was being held Monday in the Highlands County Jail and held without bail after sheriff’s investigators reported he molested a very young girl about six years ago.

Antron Tremain Felton, 24, of 124 Commerce St., Lake Placid, was booked in on March 13, and charged with sexual battery on a child less than 12.

The accusation dates back to Aug. 17, 2001, when the sheriff’s office received a complaint from someone other than the child, accusing Felton of molesting the child.

At that time during an interview with investigators, the child reported that no one had given her “a bad touch.”

Felton denied the allegation and the case was closed as unfounded, due to lack of evidence.

However, nearly six years later, a note to a school friend, in which the girl now 11 stated she had been raped twice, was handed by the friend to her teacher and the case was reopened in Okaloosa County.

“I received a telephone call from Investigator Ralph Garrett with the Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office,” reported Highlands County sheriff’s Investigator James F. Casey. “In reference to an alleged incident of sexual abuse to a child that occurred approximately five years ago in Lake Placid.”

Garrett was assigned to the case when the investigation was reopened on Oct. 13, 2006.

The victim told the investigating officer Okaloosa sheriff’s deputy that she had been sexually abused on two occasions at her family residence in Lake Placid, where she lived with her mother, brother and sister. The victim and her brother now live with their father in another county.

The victim told investigators she had been raped when she was four or five years old, and accused Felton of being the perpetrator.

The child told investigators she was sexually attacked twice alleging the second time he held his hand over her mouth so she could not scream, and told her not to say anything or she “would be dead.”

Felton currently is 6-feet 4-inches tall and weighs 342 pounds. He was about 18 or 19 years old when the alleged crime took place.

Felton continued to maintain his innocence, said he has not had any contact with the family for five years, and said he loves children and would never harm a child physically or sexually, Casey’s report stated.