AUBURN — A Massachusetts man sentenced earlier this month to 30 years in jail for sexually assaulting a 9-year-old woman in Auburn is interesting his conviction and sentence.
David. P. Hunt Jr. Androscoggin County Jail picture
David P. Hunt Jr., 40, of Taunton, Massachusetts, was convicted at a February trial of 4 prices, together with two for gross sexual assault and two for illegal sexual contact.
It took a jury lower than an hour to deliberate earlier than reaching its verdict after a three-day trial.
Hunt was sentenced to 30 years in jail and a lifetime of supervised launch.
An Androscoggin County grand jury had indicted Hunt on the costs in 2018.
The Maine Supreme Judicial Court docket routinely hears conviction appeals, however might reject an attraction of a sentence, in response to Hunt’s lawyer, Verne Paradie.
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In an software to the state’s excessive courtroom explaining why it ought to hear his sentencing attraction, Paradie wrote that the trial courtroom’s sentence was “considerably greater than is warranted for this crime.”
He stated the trial courtroom decide had “failed to contemplate important mitigating elements and the rehabilitation potential” of Hunt.
Paradie wrote that Androscoggin County Superior Court docket Justice Harold Stewart II additionally had discovered that “there had been important psychological trauma impacting the event of the sufferer and important psychological well being results on the sufferer, together with post-traumatic stress dysfunction, with none skilled testimony concerning the identical.”
Stewart stated throughout Hunt’s sentencing it was troublesome to reconcile the abusive predator portrayed at trial and by the sufferer with the kind-hearted, sincere, reliable and beneficiant man who served his nation honorably as described by Hunt’s household and associates.
The sufferer, who was 9 years outdated when she was sexually assaulted by Hunt in Auburn, spoke as an grownup at his sentencing.
She stated Hunt’s abuse of her began with him inflicting painful military-style punishment that quickly escalated to sexual assault.
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The sufferer stated Hunt threatened to harm her mom, whom he had overwhelmed in entrance of her, if she informed anybody concerning the abuse. He additionally had proven the woman a gun and let her maintain it “and put that concern in my eyes.”
For these causes, she hadn’t informed anybody, for years, she stated.
Finally, she informed a pal, who informed an grownup, who informed police, who opened a prison investigation in 2012.
In the course of the time main as much as his conviction, the sufferer stated her psychological well being has suffered, together with nervousness and despair.
“I used to be all the time in concern of him,” she informed the decide. “Though I didn’t bodily see him, he had management over me. David having my identify tattooed on his physique for the remainder of his life makes me sick. Due to what David did to me, I’ve a tough time trusting males.”
Now that Hunt is behind bars, the sufferer stated, “I can stay my life with out concern.”
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His abuse has “had a big impact on my life,” she stated, “and I’ll battle residing with this for the remainder of my life.”
“I absolutely respect the tragedy and the affect that, once more, all sides have skilled by this,” Justice Stewart stated as he imposed his sentence on Hunt.
Whereas Stewart stated he was aware of the loss Hunt’s sentence will imply to his household, he stated that loss is outweighed by the affect Hunt’s prison conduct inflicted on his sufferer.
“Regrettably, there’s nothing in our prison justice system that can ever make a sufferer complete,” Stewart stated.
The case had been investigated by the Auburn Police Division and a regulation enforcement company in Massachusetts in a municipality the place further sexual assaults occurred.
Costs towards Hunt for related prison conduct involving the identical sufferer are pending in Massachusetts.
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