A 38-year-old Nevada man has been charged with multiple counts of child abuse and lewdness involving his girlfriend's children. Rosario Diraffaele is accused of beating, burning and shooting his girlfriend's 9-year-old son with a pellet gun between 2023 and 2025.
Rosario "Roy" Diraffaele was indicted in May after police conducted a welfare check at an apartment in the central Las Vegas Valley last year. Officers responded to reports of concerning behavior described by the victims.
According to grand jury testimony, the boy said Diraffaele forced him to perform exercises such as wall squats as punishment. If he could not complete them, Diraffaele allegedly burned him with cigarettes, stabbed him with a fork or shot him with a pellet gun while telling him not to speak about the abuse.
Diraffaele also faces accusations of inappropriate sexual contact with the girl's daughter. He has a criminal history dating back to 2006, including a 2012 sentence of one to five years for theft.
He is charged with four counts of child abuse, neglect or endangerment, two counts of lewdness with a child under 14 and one count of open or gross lewdness. Diraffaele is being held on $100,000 bail, has pleaded not guilty and is scheduled for trial in November.