The Sun Journal reports that 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 Sun Journal reported that 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.”
