Timothy A. Clary/NBC/Getty Images; Jenny Chang-Rodriguez/BI
The girl was 14 and attending a Dallas dog show. She and her family were talking to a prominent handler and longtime family friend, Adam Wilkerson, 31, when he asked her to help him get coffee for the group. Instead, he brought her to an empty hall closet and instructed her to touch his exposed penis.
She began working as Wilkerson's assistant a few months later. She'd been showing dogs since she was a toddler, her mother told Business Insider. Working for Wilkerson, whose dogs had won awards including best of breed at the lauded Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show, seemed like a natural step to achieving the girl's ambition of becoming a professional dog handler.