AUBURN — A judge who said he struggled to reconcile the dual personas of a Massachusetts man sentenced him Tuesday to 30 years in prison for sexually assaulting a 9-year-old girl in Auburn as far back as 2009.
David. P. Hunt Jr. Androscoggin County Jail photo
Androscoggin County Superior Court Justice Harold Stewart II said the family of David P. Hunt Jr., 40, of Taunton, Massachusetts, described him as the opposite of the man portrayed by the victim on the witness stand at Hunt’s trial and in the courtroom Tuesday.
Now an adult, Hunt’s victim said Tuesday that his abuse of her started with him inflicting painful military-style punishment that soon escalated to sexual assault.
She said he 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.
Eventually, she told a friend, who told an adult, who told police who opened a criminal investigation in 2012.
A decade later, Hunt was convicted of all four charges, including two for gross sexual assault and two for unlawful sexual contact.
During the time leading up to his conviction, the victim said her mental health has suffered, including anxiety and depression.
“I was always in fear of him,” she told the judge. “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.”
His abuse has “had a huge impact on my life,” she said, “and I will struggle living with this for the rest of my life.”
David P. Hunt Jr. of Massachusetts awaits sentencing Tuesday in Androscoggin County Superior Court in Auburn for sexually assaulting a 9-year-old girl in Auburn as far back as 2009. His attorney, Verne Paradie of Lewiston, is next to him. Christopher Williams screenshot
A detective from Massachusetts who created a special unit there for victims of sex crimes told the judge Tuesday that he was with the victim when the jury returned its verdict.
She and her family retired to a small room where, the first words the victim quietly uttered were: “When will he be getting out? When will he be getting out?”
The detective told Justice Stewart that, at a time when there should be “some sort of celebration because her journey had ended, her mind and body were already preparing for a time when her safety might be compromised.”
Hunt’s family spoke Tuesday of a kind-hearted, honest, dependable and generous man who served his country honorably and was always looking out for his family and friends.
“He would give you the shirt off his back,” the mother of one of Hunt’s children said.
The mother of Hunt’s youngest daughter called him a “protector.”
“It really is difficult, if not impossible, to reconcile the two David Hunts that have been described in this proceeding,” Justice Stewart said shortly before imposing sentence.
“There is the David Hunt that the Hunt family or the extended family knows. And, apparently, that’s the David Hunt that they all love and trust. And, I imagine, that that person who was described during the trial is totally foreign to them,” Stewart said.
“And then, of course, there’s the David Hunt that (the victim) knows, and that is one that the jury, in fact, convicted of the crimes that are under consideration,” he said.
“I fully appreciate the tragedy and the impact that, again, all sides have experienced by this,” he said.
While Stewart said he was mindful of the loss Hunt’s sentence will mean to his family, he said that loss is outweighed by the impact Hunt’s criminal conduct inflicted on his victim.
“Regrettably, there is nothing in our criminal justice system that will ever make a victim whole,” Stewart said.
“The only way we could ever afford you justice,” he told the victim, “is if we had the ability to rewrite time; if we had some magical device, we could just set the clocks back, and we, of course, do not have that.”
After serving his sentence, Hunt will be on supervised release for the rest of his life, during which time he must register as a sex offender and have no contact with the victim or anyone under the age of 18, except for his biological children, with supervision from a parent and corrections officials.
Hunt, who wore a blue jail suit and was masked, handcuffed and shackled during the hearing, did not speak.
According to state law, a defendant convicted of gross sexual assault involving a victim younger than 12 can be sentenced to “any term of years.”
Maine law requires the court to begin the sentencing analysis with a basic sentence of at least 20 years and allows it to deviate from that number depending on the aggravating and mitigating circumstances.
In Hunt’s case, Stewart set his basic sentence at 25 years and added five years for aggravating factors.
Assistant District Attorney Katherine Bozeman was seeking a sentence of 35 years, plus lifetime supervision.
At trial, jurors heard testimony that Hunt sexually assaulted the girl 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 occurred.
The girl testified at trial; Hunt did not.
Charges against Hunt for similar criminal conduct involving the same victim are pending in Massachusetts.
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