Gregory Leary vehemently maintained his innocence and swore that he was not a party on the alleged gang-raping of a 7-year old girl during that fateful party in a vacant Rowan Towers apartment unit last March 28.

Leary was interviewed by the Associated Press in Mercer County Correctional Center, which has been his home when authorities arrested him in April.

Police investigators had established that the young girl was sold by her 15-year old stepsister, who police said even watched as seven men and young boys raped the 7-year old in an apartment complex notoriously known for crime and drug-related incidents.

Leary was apprehended along with the 15-year old stepsister, a 17-year old cousin and four other young individuals, three of which were minors.

He recounted that he attended the party after getting a tattoo to immortalize a fallen friend, who was killed in a gang-related dispute in February.

The young suspect told the AP that he remembered at least eight people were present at the apartment during the party, which excluded the two sisters.

Leary admitted that the youngster was in fact a pestering presence as she kept on badgering her older sister to go home.

He said that he eventually gave the 7-year old some dollar bills and urged her to get something on the vending machined located at the building’s lobby downstairs.

Leary insisted that the money was not a payment to allow some people in the room to have sex with the kid, who refused to leave her sister and opted to stay in the living room.

He added that a group consisting of the 15-year old, him and some other friends entered a bedroom in the apartment where they engaged in a group sex with the girl, an activity he characterized as wholly consensual act.

Leary clarified that he could not remember who was specifically in the room, except him and the 15-year old, but police said that the young suspect had earlier admitted that he too had sex with the girl.

The suspect stuck with his earlier claims that the 7-year old did not enter the room he was into, adding that he never even saw if somebody had touched or molested the kid, whose name he could not even recall.

That claim, however, was in complete contrast to his defense lawyer, Robin Lord, arguments that the 7-year old rape victim was merely recounting the sex act that she saw her sister had performed with some men, which she then used as a cover story for her fault of staying out late.