AUGUSTA — A Jay man is on trial this week on allegations he sexually abused a girl at his Augusta home over several years, starting when she was as young as 6.

Kenneth D. Marin, 61, is charged with sexually assaulting a girl whose mother had befriended him when the girl was between the ages of 6 and 11 years old. Prosecutors say the girl, who was friends with Marin’s grandson, considered Marin to be like a grandfather to her, and the two children often came to spend the night at his Augusta home on Togus Pond.

The girl, in a video interview played in court Monday, said Marin touched her inappropriately and sexually assaulted her numerous times from 2012-18, including walking in on her while she was taking a shower in his home and forcing himself on her and groping her from behind when she sat in a chair.

“This happened almost every time I went to bed,” at Marin’s home, the girl said in the video with Samantha Marquis, forensic interviewer for Children’s Advocacy Center of Kennebec and Somerset Counties. “I just felt, like, really scared. He’d be like, ‘It’s a very natural thing.’ I was, like, ‘I don’t want to, though, I’m like 7.'”

Marin’s lawyer, Darrick Banda, argued that Marin’s grandson would have seen any abuse perpetrated by Marin because he was almost always with them when the girl stayed over at Marin’s house.

The boy told Marquis in a videotaped interview played in court Monday that he was at Marin’s house when Marin got a call from the state Department of Health and Human Services. When he got off the phone, Marin told the boy that the girl had accused Marin of touching her.

The boy said his grandfather told him there’s no possible way that could have happened without the boy seeing something. The boy said in the video that he’d seen no inappropriate activity by Marin toward the girl. He said anytime the girl was at Marin’s, he was there too, except for one time she went there alone.

“They said he was accused of touching a girl, which I’ve never seen happen, I’m always right next to them,” the boy said in the video. Marin “was telling me, there’s no possible way there could be something happening, without me seeing it,” the boy said.

Marin was indicted by a grand jury last year on three counts of gross sexual assault, two counts each of unlawful sexual contact and unlawful sexual touching, and one count of tampering with a witness or informant.

The charges were investigated and brought by the Augusta Police Department.

Assistant District Attorney Shannon Flaherty said in her opening statement to the jury that Marin sexually assaulted the girl in his basement, bathroom and camper van, and would do so on a regular, ongoing basis. He would take the girl along on trips with his grandson, who was about her same age. They’d also spend time, including overnights, at his home, which was under renovation and had only a sheet that could be dropped down to provide some privacy for anyone using the bathroom. She said even when the curtain was down, Marin would follow the girl into the bathroom and watch her bathe.

Flaherty said the girl didn’t come forward with the allegations for so long because she cared about Marin, and he had told her if she told anyone about what they were doing, he would get in trouble and could lose his job.

The girl eventually told a friend what happened after a teacher in a sixth-grade health class talked about sexual assaults. At the urging of her friend, the girl then told her mother, who reported it to authorities.

Banda said the girl made the allegations after Marin had stopped taking her on trips and paying for things for her.

The jury trial at the Capital Judicial Center is scheduled to continue into Friday.