Man denies rape charge Old Orchard assault involved teen girl

BIDDEFORD – A 43-year-old man denied in court Friday that he had anything to do with the December rape of a mentally disabled teenage girl in Old Orchard Beach.

Kingsley Nwaturocha is the second person to be charged with gross sexual assault for allegedly raping a 14-year-old girl abducted from a South Portland shopping mall and taken to an Old Orchard Beach motel room.

“I’m a family man,” Nwaturocha told Maine District Court Judge Christine Foster. “I’m not a criminal.”

Foster set bail at $5,000, rejecting a prosecutor’s request of $75,000.

Dan Eneagu, 38, of Albuquerque, N.M., was arrested in December in connection with the rape and is in jail on $75,000 bail.

Nwaturocha was arrested Feb. 9 as he crossed into New York from Canada aboard an Amtrak train.

U.S. border agents did a routine criminal background check and found he was wanted in Maine.

Nwaturocha’s attorney, Clifford Strike, said Nwaturocha was returning to the United States from a two-week vacation in Canada after he “heard from a friend” that he might be facing criminal charges. Strike said his client is an electrician and was working on oil rigs on the Portland waterfront, as was Eneagu.

Old Orchard Beach police allege that Nwaturocha

waited in a motel room in

Old Orchard Beach, where Eneagu also was staying, when an acquaintance of the men brought the girl to the motel.

Strike said Nwaturocha wasn’t even at the motel when the alleged rape occurred.

“The room was rented in his name. He’s a victim of

circumstances. He had nothing to do with this,” Strike said.

Nwaturocha, who is a native of Nigeria, lived in Maryland before coming to Maine to work on the oil rigs.

“I came to Portland, Maine, to work, not to cause any trouble,” he said.