Terms of the payments certainly didn't show that Coy, despite his public proclamations of immense wealth from Dope House, had reached the ranks of rappers who could simply cut a check and walk away from their past mistakes. At his request, he gained approval to pay the retroactive support and $11,500 in attorney's fees in installments spread over four years.

At this point, Coy's penchant for an underage girl was merely an obscure civil matter, not the stuff of criminal charges for what amounted to statutory rape. Odom said the rapper may not have known her specific age. That argument was hard to accept, however. He did know she was only a middle school student, because he used to pick her up after her seventh-grade classes. Still, it could have been explained away as a onetime error in judgment during a troubled period in his life. After all, Coy had an adult partner, Gina Acosta. They'd met in 1989, and she was now the mother of Carlos Jr., who suffered from a hyperthyroid condition, and his beloved daughter, Carley.

No, his inner circle of supporters insisted, Carlos Coy couldn't be a child molester. One of them who shared that certainty was a longtime friend and homey, who had a nine-year-old daughter of his own, the playmate of six-year-old Carley Coy.

Carley and her friend and their mothers had made the most out of the long Labor Day weekend last year. The women, close companions for several years, treated the youngsters to shopping and then dinner at Joe's Crab Shack on the Gulf Freeway.

Carley didn't want the fun to end. As her friend's mother drove them home, Coy's daughter asked if the playmate could spend the night. Her mother reluctantly agreed, and soon the kids were romping around in the upstairs kids' room of the Coy home.

They played "cops," with one pretending to drive a pint-sized police car while the other was a ticket-writing traffic officer. The girls turned to entertainment with a Barbie CD-ROM on Carley's computer.

When they retired to the mother's bedroom and channel-surfed, Coy himself arrived, clad in boxer shorts and a T-shirt. He had them switch the TV to a movie he enjoyed, Texas Chainsaw Massacre. They all lounged on the bed in the darkened room watching the splatter-fest, the nine-year-old said, and then Coy started to caress her buttocks as she lay on her stomach.

The girl later testified that she became momentarily scared. The girls were soon dancing at Coy's urging to Destiny's Child's Survivor. Their other girlfriend on hand was picked up by her mother, then Carley and her companion changed into panties and T-shirts and popped a Scooby-Doo tape into the VCR. Carley was soon asleep; her friend, who has a history of insomnia, lay awake. She noticed Coy in the doorway. He walked over to the bed, knelt, reached over his sleeping daughter and slipped his hand under her friend's panties.

The girl lay still. She pretended to be asleep and hoped that Coy would go away. He hustled around to the other side of the bed, knelt again, shoved her panties to the side with his left hand and started to lick her vagina. Throughout the ordeal, Coy's right hand was out of her view. Again, the girl lay still, hoping he would stop. He didn't, not for a full five minutes.

After Coy left, the girl lay in bed and then went to the bathroom; she later testified that there was "slobber" all over her. She found Carley's mom and told her that her stomach hurt and she wanted to go home. An unknowing Gina arranged a ride for her -- with Carlos himself.

On that drive back, he told her not to tell anybody about what had happened, she said. Coy said she was a great dancer, that he was going to open a dance studio and make her a big star, that he would buy her and her family anything they wanted.

Minutes later, Coy was telling that same story to the girl's grandparents. They had invited him in for menudo and heard the rapper praise the girl's dancing abilities. Later, memories of the scene caused her grandmother to weep on the witness stand. She had always thought her child was a great dancer, too.

The girl's version of the night seemed incomprehensible. Here was a rap star with legions of groupies -- well-developed women flashing breasts for him in postconcert euphoria. How could he possibly prefer preadolescent kids?

Judy Johnson, clinical director for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice's Sex Offender Treatment Program in Huntsville, hasn't made a case study out of Coy. But she says that the onset of pedophilia doesn't occur suddenly in middle age, it begins developing much earlier.