When Englewood police officers responded on the afternoon of July 7 to a report of a sexual assault that had just occurred at Pirates Cove Water Park with the suspect still there, they found 18-year-old Wyoming resident Trenton Moskovita in the men’s locker room, according to an affidavit obtained by the Englewood Herald.
The affidavit describes the incident and the allegations against Moskovita this way:
When an officer attempted to detain him, Moskovita initially resisted and claimed he had been with his siblings. After being handcuffed, he refused to provide his name but eventually complied.
Moskovita told police he could not go to jail and explained that a young girl had asked for help using the bathroom. He said they went into the family restroom together, where he turned away so she could use the toilet. The girl then screamed, he said. Moskovita later admitted he should not have accompanied the girl into the bathroom and said he only used the restroom after she left.
A Pirates Cove employee told officers the victim and her mother reported the assault to him. The mother said her daughter described a man pulling her into the bathroom, pulling down his pants, and covering her mouth, the affidavit says. The employee also observed Moskovita hurriedly packing his belongings and helping his siblings change clothes as police arrived.
The affidavit says video footage was reviewed and showed Moskovita take the female child into the bathroom, where they both stayed for about nine minutes. The footage also captured Moskovita motioning for the girl to approach him in the public shower area before taking her by the hand and entering the bathroom together. The girl exited the bathroom in apparent distress, followed by Moskovita a few minutes later.
According to a police interview with the victim, she described how Moskovita asked her to do him a favor inside the bathroom. Once in the bathroom, she got scared and started to scream and Moskovita covered her mouth, the affidavit says.
The girl reported that he pulled down both his and her pants and touched her genital area and said “it felt weird” and hurt, according to the affidavit.
The girl said she saw Moskovita’s genitals and closed her eyes while the assault was happening, the affidavit says. It adds that the girl said when she tried to pull away, Moskovita’s grip tightened and he blocked her exit, so she decided to stop struggling.
After the assault, the girl said Moskovita told her not to tell anyone, said he had done this before, and wanted to continue with another action. The girl was able to run out of the bathroom and immediately notified her mother.
During Moskovita’s interview later that day, detectives say he was visibly scared and claimed he wasn’t sure why he was in trouble for helping the girl go to the bathroom. He requested a lawyer and didn’t make a statement.
Moskovita remains in the Arapahoe County Jail on a $200,000 cash or surety bond on a sexual assault on a child and second degree kidnapping charge. He will hear formal charges against him in court on July 11 at the Arapahoe County Justice Center.
Moskovita is legally considered innocent unless convicted of a crime, and all allegations and descriptions in the affidavit are unproven at this time.
I’m writing to express my deep anger and dismay over your recent article covering the sexual assault of a child. The decision to publish such sensitive and explicit details—without any indication of consent from the victim’s family—is not only unethical, it is profoundly harmful.
Your reporting has re-victimized this child by exposing intimate, traumatic information to the public. This kind of coverage does not serve the public interest—it violates the dignity and privacy of a young person who has already endured unimaginable harm. It is especially disturbing that the article included the perspective of the attacker, a decision that felt not only gratuitous but disgusting, and shockingly indifferent to the survivor’s experience.
What steps are you taking to correct this? Will the article be removed or significantly revised? Will an apology be issued to the victim and their family?
The way this story was handled reflects a serious failure in editorial judgment. I urge you to take accountability and ensure your publication does not further perpetuate harm under the guise of journalism.