Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

An Escambia County Grand Jury indicted a Perdido man on sex abuse charges of a child less than 12.

According to Sheriff Heath Jackson, the sheriff’s department was contacted by the Department of Human Resources in reference to allegations between a victim less than 12 years old and Dustin Ray Gates.

Jackson said after an investigation, the case was presented to the grand jury for charges of sexual abuse of a child less than 12 and enticing a child for immoral purpose.

Jackson said Gates was arrested on Nov. 18 for sexual abuse of a child less than 12 and enticing a child for immoral purposes and placed in the Escambia County Jail.

The indictment says that Gates allegedly persuaded or invited a child to a room “for the purpose of proposing to such child the performance of an act of sexual intercourse, or an act which constitutes the offense of sodomy, or for the purpose of proposing the fondling or feeling of the sexual or genital parts of such child, or the breast of such child, or for the purpose of committing an aggravated assault upon such child, or for the purpose of proposing that such child fondle or feel sexual or genital part of said Dustin Ray Gates.”