Carnival worker charged with rape

A New Jersey man who was in the area working with a carnival is being held in the county jail on $75,000 bond while awaiting a hearing on a charge of rape accused of having sex with an underage girl in Havre.

The Hill County attorney's office charged Joshua Nessederine, born in 1989, with a felony count of sexual intercourse without consent after he was accused of having sex with an unwilling 15-year-old.

According to the charging document, a woman reported on July 24 that an assault had occurred. The woman told a Havre police officer that Nessederine, who she identified only as Josh, an employee of a carnival, had had sex with the girl July 18.

The document said the girl told investigating officers that Nessederine had visited her at her place of employment in Havre right before the Blaine County Fair in Chinook started, and they exchanged telephone numbers.

On July 18, she said, she had gone to see a movie in Havre with Nessederine with some of her friends. After the movie, they went to a local business at which Nessederine purchased alcohol.

They then went to the residence in Havre of one of the girl's friends to drink and play cards, the charging document says.

After the girl found she could not go to another house to stay the night, she decided to stay at the house where they had played cards and drank, the document said.

Nessederine went into the bedroom where she would be sleeping, and although the girl told him she didn't want to have sex, she said, he "insisted that it would be all right. "

He had sex with her a total of four times during the night, the girl said.

Officers collected evidence at the residence where the girl said the sex had occurred, and the other people who were there told the officers that the girl had told them the next morning that Nessederine had had sex with her several times that night.

An arraignment hearing for Nessederine had not been scheduled as of this morning.