WESTFIELD — An area mom is uncertain if justice will be served after an alleged sexual assault involving her 4-year-old daughter.

“Our lives are defined by moments,” mother Aimee Helman stated as she shared her story with the OBSERVER. “Some of those moments enhance you, inspire you or just plain break you.”

She said she had faced all these moments in her life until one of the most wretched of crimes reared its ugly head last year — the alleged sexual assault of her 4-year-old daughter.

“The moment that broke me was the moment my magnetic, intelligent, inspiring, beautiful daughter told me she had been sexually assaulted,” the mom shared. “My first feeling was disbelief, not because I didn’t believe my daughter, but because I couldn’t. Her words echoed in my ears while my mind went spiraling. My heart shattered into a million pieces.”

Helman claimed she knew her child wasn’t lying because in her opinion, “what 4-year-old would have a reason to, especially about something so heinous with loads of details she’d have had no prior knowledge of?”

The day her daughter spoke up, Helman’s baby-sitter had messaged her and said she had an errand to run around 3 p.m. The sitter was gone until Helman arrived at the location at 3:15 p.m. The sitter left her 13-year-old son there, who watched the baby-sitter’s daughters of the same age all the time.

Though Helman wasn’t too thrilled about it, she agreed. “When I picked her up and gathered her things, I told (my daughter) to say thank you to my babysitter’s son as we were walking out the door. She refused,” Helman said. “I thought she was being rude. I raised my voice and told her to thank him. She was furious and dead set against it.

“I yelled. After that she begrudgingly thanked him with tears in her eyes and we left. I thought she was just mad because I yelled.”

It was that night the child shared her distressing story.

“What very well could be my worst regret in life was quite possibly the breaking point she needed to speak up and save herself. ‘You made me thank him mommy, I shouldn’t have to say thank you to someone who hurt me.’ I was horrified,” Helman confessed. “Not only to learn of her abuse but to then realize I made her say thank you to her attacker moments after her assault.”

Following the confession, Helman took all the correct steps, visiting the hospital and police. The minor was apparently brought down for questioning along with his mother who asked for a lawyer.

According to Helman, the whole thing went stagnant. “Child Protection Services never investigated the claim my daughter made about him assaulting his sister, because she’s 4; she’s not considered credible,” Helman wrote.

Six months went by before the results of the forensics came back — DNA was found on her underpants.

“Part of me wanted to vomit, and part of me felt a glimmer of hope that this could be our key getting justice,” Helman went on. “This meant it wasn’t a ‘he said/she said’ situation anymore; there was proof.”

However that wouldn’t be the case for Helman and her family.

The case was taken to criminal court in Chautauqua County, where according to Helman, the District Attorney’s office brought the case in front of the judge to have a warrant granted to get a sample of the alleged suspect’s DNA to match. The judge denied the warrant because of his age. “(The judge) said he had no jurisdiction over him until 14 years of age,” Helman shared. “The District Attorney’s Office then dropped the case because they told me they can’t take on a case where the testimony is coming for a 4-year-old. She wasn’t considered reliable enough to them.”

The case was then passed on to Child Protective Services, to be presented to Family Court instead. CPS, however, according to Helman was told “they only investigate cases where an adult has been accused of hurting a child. They do not investigate children hurting children. Therefore they will not be taking the case.”

Negligence was brought up as an option on the babysitter’s behalf, but Helman was purportedly told “that it doesn’t matter because he is 13. He is old enough to be a caregiver for her therefore not negligent.”

According to Helman it’s a Catch 22. “You’re old enough to be responsible for someone else’s life as their caregiver, but not old enough to be responsible for your own actions?”

After all of this, Helman received a call from the village police department explaining that they were stuck in a legal loophole and that nothing can be done. They closed her case, even after another little girl, she’d heard, came forward confessing the same thing.

The OBSERVER was told that the case “had to be pushed to Family Court, due to the age of the suspect,” according to Patrick Swanson, Chautauqua County district attorney. Westfield Police commented that the case was sent to the district attorney’s office, but the officer spoken to by the OBSERVER couldn’t say for certain if it had been closed or not.