Man convicted of taking girl as live-in sex partner
A 44-year-old Spokane County man was convicted Monday of four counts for taking a girl as his live-in sex partner when she was 14 and 15 years old.
Gerald Lee Hooper Jr. faces a 10-year prison term when Superior Court Judge Harold Clarke III sentences him on Oct. 31.
State sentencing guidelines usually provide a standard range of punishment that is well short of the statutory maximum, but Hooper was convicted of so many “most serious” crimes that the guidelines call for the statutory-maximum 10 years.
Clarke convicted Hooper of sexual exploitation of a minor, third-degree child rape, third-degree child molestation and possession of photos of a minor engaged in sexually explicit conduct. The rape and molestation convictions are for acts when the girl, now 17, was 14 and 15. Girls younger than 16 cannot legally consent to sex with an adult.
Court documents indicate Hooper took sexually explicit photos of the girl when she was as young as 11. The girl Hooper raped and sexually exploited had been his neighbor, and had worked with him in a furniture business he operated in Cheney.
Clarke acquitted Hooper of second-degree child rape and second-degree child molestation charges for misconduct alleged to have occurred when the girl was 13.
Testimony indicated the victim, who was estranged from her family and agreed to have sex with Hooper, lived with him at various locations, including a residence in the 11600 block of North Sheridan and at a home in Endicott, Wash.
Hooper’s illicit relationship with the girl was discovered when he sold a computer to a man who recognized the victim in pornographic photos he found on the computer.
One of two detectives who escorted Hooper back from Alaska, where he had gone by the time an arrest warrant was issued, said Hooper volunteered an incriminating statement about the photos found on the computer: “I deleted those pictures. I really don’t know how they found them.”
Hooper didn’t testify or present witnesses in his nonjury trial.