Death penalty sought in West Palm Beach child sex abuse case

Palm Beach County prosecutors announced Friday that they are pursuing the death penalty for two men accused of repeatedly sexually assaulting a girl beginning when she was 6, a rare step in a case not involving homicide.

Josue D. Mendez-Sales, 27, and Pablo N. Cobon-Mendez, 23, of West Palm Beach, were each arrested in July and are charged with two counts of sexual battery on a person less than 12 years of age. Both have pleaded not guilty.

The girl was 7 years old when she told her babysitters that Mendez-Sales and Cobon-Mendez had been sexually abusing her every day, according to a probable cause affidavit. The affidavit did not say how she knew the two men. She lived with six other people at a location that is redacted from the affidavit, and shared a bedroom with Cobon-Mendez and a person whose name is also redacted.

The babysitters contacted the Department of Children and Families, which interviewed the girl, who described the abuse. DCF notified West Palm Beach Police.

Both men admitted to sexually assaulting the girl in statements to police after they were read their Miranda rights, according to the affidavits. Mendez-Sales said that he had sexually assaulted the girl five times, always while drunk, and that he had stopped drinking to avoid assaulting her. He also said that he had hit her with a belt to discipline her.

The case is one of South Florida’s first death penalty cases under a 2023 law that allows the death penalty for people who commit sexual batteries on children under age 12.

“The crimes committed against this young child are among the most horrific imaginable,” Palm Beach County State Attorney Alexcia Cox said in a statement. “The repeated abuse of a defenseless child, by Josue David Mendez Sales and Pablo Neftaly Cobon Mendez, is not only a violation of the law, it is a violation of our deepest human values. In the gravest cases, and when the victims are children, prosecutors have a duty to consider the strongest punishment available; in this case, that is the death penalty. This is about justice, accountability, and protecting the innocent.”