Bail option delayed for ex-cop in sex case

Bill Gang

Friday, Aug. 6, 1999 | 10:52 a.m.

District Judge Michael Douglas has had second thoughts about the $5,000 cash bail he set early this week for a former Metro Police officer charged with having sex with a 14-year-old girl he met while transporting her to a county home for displaced children.

Before 24-year-old Adam Huettner could bail out on the statutory sexual seduction charge, the judge rescinded the bail setting until an Aug. 19 hearing can be held to determine if the defendant is a flight risk or a danger to the community.

The case is complicated because Huettner wants to withdraw his guilty plea to the statutory sexual seduction charge involving the teenager he married on April 15 in Mexico.

If that is granted, Huettner will also be facing charges of possessing child pornography involving photos of the teenager. Those counts were to be dismissed under the plea bargain.

At a May hearing, Deputy District Attorney Thomas Carroll had argued that the ex-lawman is "obsessed" with the girl and is "a danger to her emotional well-being."

Although the girl, who is pregnant, gave statements to police that led to the criminal charges, she has since disappeared, said Deputy District Attorney Bill Kephart.

While sex with a teenager is not a crime if there is a legal marriage, the seduction charge alleges the pair engaged in sex before the April marriage, including when the girl was just 13.

Kephart said he has not yet verified the Mexican marriage actually occurred or is valid.

Defense attorney David Schieck, however, has provided documents to prosecutors that he said prove there was a marriage ceremony in the state of Michoacan in central Mexico.

Huettner was a rookie officer on probationary status in his job with Metro when he was terminated before the marriage or the filing of criminal charges.