A 44-year-old Fayetteville man has been arrested and charged with molesting a 10-year-old girl.

Howard Knight, Jr., whose last known address is listed as the Value Place Motel on Bragg Boulevard, turned himself in to law enforcement officers today, according to a news release.

Knight is charged with taking indecent liberties with a child, a sexual act by substitute parent and a first degree statutory sexual offense.

The victim told detectives she was assaulted while in Knight's care in September, the news release stated.

Knight was living with the girl's mother, who was recovering from a workplace injury, according to the release.

The child told her mother what had happened and the mother called the sheriff's department, the release stated.

Knight's bail was set at $75,000. He is due to make a first court appearance Tuesday.

It sounds like something out of the pages of The Weekly World News, right next to an alien abduction story: Paralyzed California man bit by brown recluse spider walks again. Only it was reported for real last week on CNN, ABC, NBC and CBS.

Yes, a miracle - a miracle this could make the evening news, for this was a phenomenally poorly reported story bereft of the simplest of fact-checking. Of the three basic facts reported by these apparently professional journalists - paralyzed man, brown recluse spider, and walking - two are surely false.

Yet more than just another example of lousy broadcast journalism, such stories bring false hopes and even danger to those desperate enough to experiment with venom to cure their paralysis.