Lawsuit describes sexual abuse of teen girl by her adoptive father

Once his eldest son left for college, Charles Seely Jr.’s path was cleared.

As she slept, he entered his 15-year-old adopted daughter’s bedroom from an adjoining bathroom several times each week. He got into Valya’s bed and touched her breasts, buttocks and vagina, she alleges in a lawsuit. The crude petroleum production executive complained to Valya that he was no longer attracted to his wife.

The couple brought Valya to Fort Worth from Russia nine years earlier.

Charles Seely developed a solution to his gratification quandary, according to the lawsuit. He would be the person to teach his adopted daughter about sex. They would practice. Groping and kissing led to intercourse. The lessons would take place during a seven-year period in their home in southwest Fort Worth’s Westcliff neighborhood, in a car outside a church, at an Acapulco vacation house and after hours in his downtown office.

The account of incestuous sexual contact is described in a lawsuit that Valya Seely, now 22, filed this month in the 153rd District Court of Tarrant County. Charles Seely has been charged with three crimes in connection with the allegations: indecency with a child by sexual contact, prohibited sexual conduct and sexual assault of a child/soliciting a minor.

He was between 42 and 48 during January 2012 to November 2018, the period the suit alleges the sexual abuse occurred.

The criminal case has not been resolved, and the path of the civil suit has just begun. Seely was released on bond after his arrest in December. His attorney, Trent Loftin, said last week that he had not fully reviewed the allegations in the civil petition but planned to. Loftin declined to respond to the substance of the suit.

“He made her his sex slave,” said Darrell Keith, Valya Seely’s attorney. Valya and her two brothers had been physically abused in Russia and were removed from the custody of their biological parents. They were living in an orphanage when, in 2003, the Seelys adopted the siblings. Valya was 6.

The sexual contact with her adoptive father heightened the sorrow of Valya Seely’s life, Keith said. She was abused early, rescued in a bright moment, then sexually abused as an adolescent and adult.

The Fort Worth Star-Telegram typically does not publish the name of a person who alleges they are a victim of a sex crime. In this case, Keith said Valya Seely agreed to be identified in the reporting with the expectation that it would discourage other men considering untoward acts with their children. The use of her name and the credibility of her account that is supported by it may “deter other fathers from sexually assaulting their daughters,” biological or adopted, Keith said.

Charles Seely, now 49, held a volunteer children’s ministry position at Christ Chapel Bible Church until November, when he was removed. Valya Seely told the church of the alleged abuse in November.

The suit lists 10 locations where sexual contact allegedly occurred and recounts Valya Seely’s efforts to end it.

In July 2013, a physician prescribed Valya Seely birth control pills to treat a hormonal imbalance condition. When she told Charles Seely, “he was very happy and excited with this development and took advantage of it by discontinuing his use of condoms” during sex with her, the suit states.

When Valya Seely was 16 and 17, he twice recorded on video his sexual abuse of her that occurred in her bedroom and her younger brother’s bedroom, the suit alleges. He intended to view the video when she was not around.

Charles Seely told Valya Seely that it would be all right for him to have intercourse with her because he was her “parent,” according to the lawsuit.

The suit describes the difficulty Valya Seely had in ending the assaults, both because of the significant difference in their physical size and the financial stability her adoptive father provided.

Charles Seely threatened to cut her off when Valya Seely rebuffed him.

She believed he would end “all of his financial and other essential support for her and there was no other place she could turn or go for financial support, food, shelter, and other vital support to survive,” according to the suit.

Valya was physically unable to defend herself against Charles Seely, who is 6 feet 3 inches tall and weighed about 250 pounds. She is 5 feet 3 inches tall and weighed about 120 to 140 pounds.

Valya was emotionally weary.

“She believed she could not do anything to stop the assaults and abuse but try to survive by mentally and physically suffering through ... crying, and praying to God to make [them] stop.”

The end came in November, when Valya’s boyfriend raised his suspicions with her, the lawsuit says. She told him of the abuse, then shared it with a Christ Chapel Bible Church pastor. Then police.

She is seeking damages over $1 million, and is not required now to specify an exact amount.

Charles Seely confessed to relatives and employees of his family’s business, Seely Oil Company, according to a warrant affidavit written to support his arrest. He cried and apologized as he admitted to three company employees the inappropriate sexual relationship, according to the affidavit.

The employees told a Fort Worth police detective that Seely had called a meeting with the three of them in which he acknowledged that the allegations were true. He said that he was going to get help.

This story was originally published July 29, 2019 at 7:00 AM.