EDINBURG — An 8-year-old girl testified to jurors Tuesday that her mother’s ex-boyfriend, Modesto Sarmiento Jr., touched her with what she called his "middle part."

Sarmiento, 26, is charged with sexually assaulting the girl when she was 6 years old and while he lived with her mother. Prosecutors say he sodomized the girl, forced her to perform oral sex on him and that he struck her on the head with a broom. He pleaded not guilty to the four felony counts filed against him.

Two prior attempts to try the case ended in mistrials because of procedural issues and the court’s difficulty in one jury pool to find 12 people impartial enough, or who didn’t have a particular conflict, to try the case.

Still dressed in her school uniform, the girl nervously answered Assistant District Attorney Orlando Esquivel’s questions under direct examination in Visiting Judge Fidencio Guerra Jr.’s Auxiliary B court. The Monitor’s policy is to not identify victims of sexual abuse or their immediate family members to protect their identity.

The girl said the abuse occurred when Sarmiento would take care of her and her younger brother, who is Sarmiento’s child, while their mother was at work. Her mother learned of the abuse after the girl told school teachers.

The child circled the mouth and bottom of a female’s body parts displayed in a drawing Esquivel provided to answer the prosecutor’s question of where Sarmiento had touched her. On a drawing of a man’s body, she circled the groin and said Sarmiento used his "middle part" to touch her.

She also answered questions about a cut she received on her forehead, where she said Sarmiento hit her with a broom, and then sewed her up himself with a needle and thread.

Under cross-examination from Sarmiento’s defense attorney, Rey Merino cq , the girl said she had talked about her testimony with prosecutors before and had seen the drawings.

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