A man charged with allegedly raping a 15-year-old migrant girl at a Rockland shelter underwent two sex offender registry checks and entered the United States through a “federal program,” according to Gov. Maura Healey’s office.
Cory Alvarez, 26, pleaded not guilty in Hingham District Court to one count of aggravated rape of a child and was being held in jail ahead of a dangerousness hearing scheduled for next Friday. Alvarez was a resident of a hotel in Rockland that is housing migrant families as part of the state’s shelter system, according to the Plymouth District Attorney’s Office.
At an unrelated event in Worcester, Healey said everyone who enters a state-run shelter is “vetted” and Alvarez came into the country “lawfully under the federal government through a federal program,” which a spokesperson later said was a reference to the “federal immigration system.”
“This is an individual who entered through a federal program. He was in one of our shelter locations. Everybody, including him, who enters our shelter locations is vetted,” Healey told reporters. “We’re deploying all that we can in terms of vetting individuals.”
Alvarez underwent two Massachusetts sex offender registry checks — including through the sex offender registry information system and the Sex Offender Registry Board — which are standard practice for all emergency assistance shelter residents, the spokesperson, Karissa Hand, said.
Healey said the state has the “security and systems in place,” including vetting processes, but “it is unfortunate that from time to time, things will happen anywhere, not just in shelter, but anywhere.”
“This is an allegation of sexual assault and rape. It’s one that we take very seriously. I’m glad that law enforcement was right on it,” she said.
The shelter in Rockland is staffed by the Massachusetts National Guard, according to a spokesperson for the Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities.
A lawyer for Alvarez did not immediately return a request for comment.
Rockland police were dispatched Wednesday evening to a Comfort Inn on Hingham Street used as a shelter for migrant families for a report of a “15-year-old disabled female that was touched inappropriately,” court documents said.
The 15-year-old told police that she went to a room at the hotel with Alvarez, who allegedly asked the girl “if she had a boyfriend, then pushed her on the bed and penetrated her,” according to court documents filed in Hingham District Court.
The girl told police that she asked Alvarez “to leave me alone but he didn’t stop,” court documents said.
Alvarez’s girlfriend, who stays at the shelter with him, showed up and spoke to police at the hotel through a friend, according to court documents.
“The woman translating freely spoke, stating Alvarez was helping (redacted) with his tablet and he later sent (redacted) up to get it,” court documents said. “He showed her how to use (it) and then left. She also stated (redacted) came up after and said to Alvarez, ‘we will just keep this between the two of us.”
The case immediately generated Republican-fueled criticism of the state-run shelter system, which is housing more than 7,500 families, of which half are migrants from outside the country.
Sen. Peter Durant, a Spencer Republican, said the “heinous act” is “indicative of systemic failures.”
“We have seen fires at shelters, chickenpox outbreaks, murderers and now rape. When is enough, enough? It is far past time for the Legislature and Administration to take action to come up with a solution. The path the state is currently on is not feasible. It is imperative to stop the flow into the state,” he said in a Friday statement.
