PORTLAND — The state’s highest court on Tuesday upheld the conviction of a Massachusetts man found guilty at trial of sexually assaulting a 9-year-old girl in Auburn as far back as 2009.
David. P. Hunt Jr. Androscoggin County Jail photo
David P. Hunt Jr, 41, of Taunton, Massachusetts was convicted at trial in February 2022 on all four charges against him, including two for gross sexual assault and two for unlawful sexual contact.
He was sentenced to 30 years in prison and a lifetime of supervised release.
At trial, jurors heard testimony that Hunt sexually assaulted the victim for a number of years while she was under the age of 12, including assaults in Auburn in 2009.
The case was investigated by the Auburn Police Department and a law enforcement agency in Massachusetts in a municipality where additional sexual assaults allegedly occurred.
The girl testified at trial; Hunt did not.
The Maine Supreme Judicial court, after hearing oral arguments last year, concluded that the trial judge did not make mistakes in rulings as alleged by Hunt in his appeal.
He claimed the judge should have granted his request to continue the trial to allow him more time to obtain the victim’s out-of-state counseling records and should not have required participants in the trial to wear masks.
Hunt also claimed that statements made during the prosecutor’s opening statement and closing and rebuttal arguments to the jury constituted prosecutorial error and that the judge made several evidentiary errors during the trial.
The victim said Hunt’s abuse of her started with him inflicting painful military-style punishment that soon escalated to sexual assault.
She said Hunt threatened to hurt her mother, whom he had beaten in front of her, if she told anyone about the abuse. He also had shown the girl a gun and let her hold it “and put that fear in my eyes.”
For those reasons, she hadn’t told anyone, for years, she said.
Eventually, she told a friend, who told an adult, who told police, who opened a criminal investigation in 2012.
During the time leading up to Hunt’s conviction, the victim said her mental health has suffered, including anxiety and depression.
“I was always in fear of him,” she told the judge at Hunt’s sentencing. “Even though I didn’t physically see him, he had control over me. David having my name tattooed on his body for the rest of his life makes me sick. Because of what David did to me, I have a hard time trusting men.”
Now that Hunt is behind bars, the victim said, “I can live my life without fear.”
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