A Roswell man plied a 13-year-old girl he met on social media with drugs, alcohol and pills, then videotaped himself having sex with the impaired teenager in his apartment multiple times over a three-week span, officials said.
Derrick Hunt, 39, was recently sentenced to 17½ years in prison for producing child pornography, U.S. District Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia Ryan Buchanan announced in a news release Tuesday.
Prosecutors said Hunt knew the victim’s age when he picked her up from her family’s home in June 2012 after she posted on Facebook that she wanted to run away. He took her to his residence and gave the teenager a continuous supply of alcohol, marijuana and opioids, according to the release.
Hunt kept secret that he had the girl in his apartment and engaged in a number of sex acts with her over the next 19 days, Buchanan said. The teen was under the influence of drugs or alcohol during many of the encounters. Court records indicate Hunt positioned his video camera around his living room to record them.
“Hunt assaulted a vulnerable young girl by plying her with drugs and alcohol in order to sexually abuse her,” Buchanan said. “Sexual predators use every opportunity, including leveraging social media platforms, to lure children into these kinds of exploitive situations. The experience of this victim and her family is the kind of nightmare scenario for unsuspecting parents that we encourage citizens to try to avoid through vigilant monitoring of their children’s social media activities.”
Hunt arranged to meet her father at a restaurant in July 2012 to drop the teen off. The father coordinated with police, who were at the drop-off location and took Hunt into custody.
He was originally charged with several child molestation offenses in Fulton County, but prosecutors said Hunt fled the state when he was released from jail on bond three weeks after his arrest.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office then secured an arrest warrant for Hunt on a federal charge of production of child pornography. He was arrested in Las Vegas under an alias in August 2019.
Hunt pleaded guilty to his state and federal charges during a hearing May 16. He will remain under federal supervision for the rest of his life after he’s released from prison, according to his sentence.
“Predators like Hunt have no place in civilized society. Their victims, in this case a 13-year-old girl, will likely never fully recover from the abuse they endured,” said Keri Farley, a special agent with FBI Atlanta, which investigated the case.
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