A Wheat Ridge attorney was convicted Tuesday of two counts of sexual abuse of a child by a jury that deliberated no more than two hours.
William Hunsaker Jr., 35, faces up to 12 years in prison, which will be determined by Larimer County District Judge Jolene Blair on Aug. 3.
Hunsaker was convicted of having sex with an 11-year-old girl whose mother he met in a chat room on the Internet. He had a hung jury in December and was retried this month; he was acquitted on charges he molested a younger son. The names of the mother, the daughter and the boy are being withheld by The Denver Post.
Hunsaker claimed he was interested only in having sex with the mother. He spent one night with the mother in the family’s apartment in Fort Collins. He was accused of molesting the daughter when she returned home from a friend’s house the next morning, and then again in a Thornton hotel.
Fort Collins police raided the mother’s apartment during an investigation into allegations she had been prostituting her daughter and younger son to various men around the country. A search of her computer yielded Hunsaker’s address and messages sent to him.
Hunsaker’s attorney, Andy Gavaldon, claimed Hunsaker never touched the girl, and blamed the mother for making up stories about his client having sex with the daughter. But police found numerous pornographic photos of the girl in Hunsaker’s computer, along with messages from Hunsaker stating his own fantasies about the girl. He blamed a heavy cocaine addiction for “not thinking clearly.”
Neither Gavaldon nor prosecutors could be reached for comment late Tuesday.
The mother, who testified both times against Hunsaker, is serving a 22-year sentence for prostituting her children. The children are in foster homes.
Arrested in 2003 and released on $350,000 bail, Hunsaker fled before his initial trial in September 2004 to Costa Rica, where he was living under an assumed name when federal authorities arrested him in 2005.
