A 66-year-old Clinton-area man was jailed under a $1 million bond earlier this week, charged with a string of child sex offenses ranging from statutory rape of a child to taking indecent liberties with the same young girl.

Andre Acosta Martinez, 276 Wheat Lane, Clinton was taken into custody Wednesday following an investigation into complaints he acted inappropriately with a female under the age of 16.

The incidents, Sampson County Sheriff’s Capt. Marcus Smith said, reportedly occurred in August, with complaints leveled against the suspect regarding inappropriate sexual conduct with a minor.

The suspect, Smith acknowledged, was reportedly having sex with the minor against her will.

Martinez was charged with seven counts of statutory sex with a child by an adult and four counts taking indecent liberties with a minor, all felonies.

Smith said the suspect was taken into custody without incident Wednesday, Oct. 16. He remained in jail Friday awaiting his next court appearance

This latest case is one of many similar incidents investigated each year by the Sampson County Sheriff’s Department.

On average, the Sheriff’s Office receives close to 100 sexual abuse cases involving minors a year, said Sheriff’s Lt. Chris Godwin, who serves with the department’s criminal investigation division.

“That’s a generous number,” Godwin said. “Some years, it’s more.”

Statistics show that, nationally, 1 in 4 girls are sexually abused in some way each year. And, of those, about 40 percent actually get reported.

Sampson’s numbers mirror the national averages, Godwin noted.

“A lot of times, these cases go unreported because the perpetrator will threaten them or make them think what’s happened isn’t a crime. Some are embarrassed and sometimes the person abusing them is someone they love and they (the victim) don’t want to cause problems,” the lieutenant pointed out.

And, he stressed, there are times that victims will tell an adult, who, in turn, refuses to believe what they have been told.

“The reasons vary,” he stressed.

But having the Sampson Child Advocacy Center, Godwin attested, helps.

“Before we had the Child Advocacy Center,” Godwin aid, “they (the victims) had to go to Fayetteville to be interview. Now they can come here, and we are able to interview their siblings who can sometimes disclose information that helps in the investigation.”

The CAC offers abused children a local place to go for interviews with law enforcement, providing a somewhat safe haven that allows them to feel comfortable when retelling personal accounts of what happened to them.