EVERSON - An Everson man was charged this week with molesting two girls he used to babysit.

Charging documents state Leodegario Flores-Marquez, 56, and his wife were often asked to babysit the girls in 2004 or 2005. Sometimes, his wife was away at the doctor or in Bellingham, and Flores-Marquez would take the girls to Riverside Park.

He would go on walks along the trail alone with the older girl, who was younger than 10, and tell the other girl to stay behind and play with her cousins. The older girl described in detail how Flores-Marquez would sexually assault her on the trail "more times than she can count" - probably a few times a week for two years, wrote Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Elizabeth Gallery.

"Every week that she could remember," the girl told investigators, "Leo" would push her to the ground and rape her over her cries of, "No!" He warned her she would get in trouble if she tried to escape or if she told anyone, Gallery wrote.

In a separate interview the other girl recalled when she was very young, "Leo" would barge in on her while she was going to the bathroom. Once he held her and asked if she wanted "to be with him," and then grabbed her bottom until she screamed, prosecutors alleged.

She recounted another time when she was helping Flores-Marquez with some boxes in a shed: "He put his hands up her shirt and tried to pull her shirt up, but she pulled it down."

Flores-Marquez was interviewed by law enforcement at the end of August. He said he babysat the girls and sometimes took them to the park, but he denied any sexual misconduct, Gallery wrote.

Flores-Marquez, who lives on Reeds Lane, was charged Wednesday, Sept. 5, with two counts of rape of a child in the first degree and two counts of child molestation in the first degree. His bail was set at $250,000. He was being held in Whatcom County Jail.

Reach CALEB HUTTON at caleb.hutton@bellinghamherald.com or call 715-2276.