WORCESTER — A Worcester man accused of wrapping a seven-year-old girl in a blanket and throwing her from a bridge on Interstate 290 into Lake Quinsigamond six years ago is now accused of raping the same child.
Joshua Hubert, 41, pleaded not guilty in Worcester Superior Court on Wednesday to two counts of aggravated rape of a child who was tied, bound, or gagged during the rape. In 2017, Hubert pleaded not guilty to two counts of attempted murder, one count of kidnapping a child under 16, and one count of strangulation or suffocation.
Prosecutors allege that Hubert – who was a friend of the girl’s father – had attended a cookout at her grandparents’ home on Forestdale Road on Aug. 26, 2017. At 2:30 a.m. the following day, Hubert allegedly kidnapped the girl from a chair she had fallen asleep in at her grandparents’ house following the cookout.
According to police, Hubert drove around Worcester with the child in his Saturn for over an hour, making several stops along the way. At one point, he stopped the car to sexually assault and manually strangle the child, with both hands and his arm, before getting back into the driver’s seat.
Police say that at about 3:15 a.m., Hubert stopped by his house on Bernice Street so he could tell his girlfriend that he was “going to the store.”
Prosecutors say surveillance footage captured Hubert making another stop at a gas station on Southbridge Street where he bought a “Dutchies” blunt and peered inside the trunk of his car.
Then, at about 4 a.m., Hubert stopped his car on the I-290 overpass at the Worcester-Shrewsbury line, and threw the girl – whom he wrapped in a blanket – from the bridge into Lake Quinsigamond.
Luckily, the girl survived.
In an interview following the incident, the girl told police that “her friend Josh” had thrown her from a bridge, adding that she “fell for a long time” before hitting the water.
“She stated that she began to swim to a building she could see but the blanket she was carrying was getting very heavy, which made it difficult to swim,” Worcester Police Detective Dylan Patient said in a 2018 search warrant affidavit obtained by MassLive. “She then swam to a house and stated that she was able to stand up in the water.”
According to prosecutors, the girl swam 100 yards to shore and made her way to the door of a Shrewsbury woman’s home in her soaking wet pajamas. The woman took her in, wrapped her in a towel, gave her dry clothing, then called police after the girl told her what her “friend Josh” had done to her.
In the affidavit, Patient said a witness saw Hubert walking around a car on the overpass before speeding off. The witness got home at about 4:15 a.m. and texted a friend, jokingly saying that he just saw a man toss someone off the bridge.
Following the incident, Hubert was suspended from his job as a systems analyst in the technology department of the Fay School in Southborough. School officials claim Hubert didn’t have any contact with children in his role.
Hubert was arrested for kidnapping and arraigned on August 28, 2017. He was held on $1 million cash bail for the kidnapping charge, until he was also charged with attempted murder later that month, which increased his bail to $2 million.
He was later indicted by a Worcester County grand jury on Jan. 25, 2018 on two counts of attempted murder and single counts of kidnapping a child under the age of 16 and strangulation or suffocation.
Following his indictment in January 2018, Hubert’s bail decreased to $50,000. He posted that bail and has been wearing a GPS monitor as he awaits a trial. On the latest rape charges, no bail was set because he had already posted the $50,000 for the prior charges, according to the Telegram & Gazette.
Hubert’s first defense attorney, Richard Welsh Jr., maintained his client’s innocence, calling into question a portion of the DNA sample taken from the child’s underwear, which he said did not match Hubert’s voluntary sample. Welsh also questioned the validity of the prosecutor’s surveillance footage as well as the witness’ identification.
Hubert’s new attorney Kevin C. Larson, said the latest charges are simply delaying the acquittal he anticipates for his client at trial.
“The new indictments do not change anything from our perspective, other than further delaying an inevitable trial. Mr. Hubert is eagerly awaiting the chance to finally clear his name,” Larson said in a written statement to the Telegram & Gazette. “We are confident that once all the evidence comes out at the actual trial, Mr. Hubert will be acquitted by the jury.”
Hubert is scheduled to appear in court again on Feb. 7, 2024.
