GavelThe Iowa Supreme Court has upheld the conviction of a Muscatine man accused of a sex crime involving his granddaughter.

Aquiles Alvarado was convicted by a jury of two counts of lascivious acts with a child, for touching the genitals of the nine-year-old girl in August of 2013.

Alvarado appealed the conviction, saying that prosecutors only proved he touched the child through her clothing and there was evidence to show he had skin-to-skin contact with her. The Iowa Supreme Court agreed with two lower court rulings that there is no express requirement in the law that the touching has to be skin-to-skin.

The Supreme Court went on to say that requiring proof of skin-to-skin contact for a conviction would keep someone wearing a glove who touches a naked victim from being prosecuted. The court says it declines to interpret the statute to produce such an “absurd result.”