A California man arrested earlier this week for the alleged 2004 abduction and sexual assault of a teenage girl whom he reportedly held against her will for the next decade has been charged with five felony counts, including rape and kidnapping.
Isidro Medrano Garcia, who was charged early Thursday, is being held on $1 million bail.
Officials have said that the unidentified woman, now 25, says Garcia had been dating her mother in 2004 at the time of the kidnapping. She says he held her against her will for a decade and in 2007, forced her to marry him.
But Garcia's attorney says the woman's claims of physical and sexual abuse are "lies made up because the couple is breaking up," The Associated Press says.
According to the AP:
"Attorney Charles Frisco said Thursday outside a brief court hearing that his client ... denies all the allegations, never hit his wife, and would never have prevented her from leaving."
Prosecutors say the alleged victim's mother, whom she recently contacted on Facebook, persuaded her to go to the police.
Authorities said Garcia inflicted mental, physical and sexual abuse on the woman, moved her at least four times and gave her multiple fake identities. She told police that she though about escaping but stayed out of fear.
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