AUBURN – A Lewiston man is set to go to trial Monday on a charge of gross sexual assault stemming from an alleged attack on a 13-year-old girl behind a downtown Lewiston store.

Raul Castro Zepeda, 43, stalked the girl for hours one Saturday in July before confronting her in Kennedy Park, police said. He jumped on her as she fled, putting his hands beneath her bathing suit, according to a police affidavit.

Zepeda was in court Thursday at a hearing where his lawyer, Verne Paradie, sought to suppress his client’s statements to police. Paradie said Zepeda, who does not speak English, made statements that might not have been properly interpreted during a videotaped interview with police. Moreover, Zepeda might not have understood the questions police asked him.

That interview was played in court on a laptop computer. The police department’s interpreter stood next to Zepeda’s court interpreter viewing the video as they listened to the interview. Before it was finished, Paradie and Assistant District Attorney Deborah Cashman met privately with Androscoggin County Superior Court Justice Ellen Gorman to discuss the interview.

Cashman later said she would not offer Zepeda’s statements to police as evidence in presenting her case to the jury, according to Paradie.

Zepeda first encountered the girl at a Blake Street store at about 9 a.m. on July 8, court records said. He watched her, then offered her $20 to come over to him, she told police. She had another man walk her home.

After lunch that day, she went to the city pool in Kennedy Park, the affidavit said. As she left, Zepeda spoke to her while he leaned against a tree. As she walked away, he followed her. She tried to take a shortcut home behind a store.

She slipped, landing on the ground on her back. Zepeda got on top of her, according to the affidavit.

Witnesses interrupted the attack. They told police the girl’s bathing suit had been pulled down, the affidavit said.

He told one of the witnesses she was his girlfriend, but he didn’t know her age, police said.

Court records showed Zepeda has a history of sex crimes, including an outstanding charge in Arkansas.