A Leesburg gun store owner is facing a charge he had sex with an underage girl at his home.
Benjamin Yarish, 47, remains free on $25,000 bond following his arrest earlier this month on a charge of sexual battery.
Yarish, who owns and operates Central Florida Gun and Tactical, is accused of molesting the girl in July while she was a guest in his home in the upscale community of Harbor Hills in Lady Lake.
An investigation was launched after the Department of Children and Families received an anonymous complaint that Yarish had sexual intercourse with the juvenile victim, according to an affidavit of probable cause on file in Lake County Court.
The girl told investigators she was at Yarish’s home on July 18 when a woman who had accompanied her to the home “passed out” in the living room. The woman had been dating Yarish for about nine months. The girl went to sleep in a bedroom at the home.
The girl was in bed when Yarish entered the room and began rubbing her back, the affidavit said. Yarish began “fondling the juvenile victim’s breasts and kissing her lips and breasts.”
Yarish, who stands more than six feet tall and weighs 240 pounds, climbed on top of the girl, who is 5 feet 2 inches tall and weighs 95 pounds. He began to have sex with the girl, who told investigators it was the “first time she has had any kind of sexual experience.” She said she asked Yarish to stop “multiple times,” but he continued. She said it felt like the intercourse lasted “forever.” She was bleeding and in pain when it ended. She later feared she might be pregnant.
Yarish allegedly told the adult who had accompanied the girl he could “set them up for life” if they “made this all go away,” the affidavit said. He also boasted he had connections in the sheriff’s office.
Yarish is scheduled for felony arraignment Sept. 8 in Lake County Court.
