New charge filed in case involving teen’s cell phone video

Published 10:51 pm Saturday, October 7, 2006

A Jones County man already accused of child exploitation has now been charged with statutory rape after a video stored on the same 14-year-old girl’s cell phone showed the two having sex, authorities said.

Justin Dean Walters, 18, was formally charged Thursday afternoon while he was being held in the Jones County Detention Facility on the exploitation charge, authorities said.

“As we were looking through files and folders on the cell phone we found an explicit video involving the 14-year-old victim that led to the initial charge, we found another, more explicit sequence in which the two were engaging in sex,” said Jones County Sheriff’s Investigator Mike Sumrall. “We asked him up front when we first took him into custody if all he did was just film the victim. He didn’t indicate to us there was anything else…”

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Both videos are believed to have been taken in the girl’s home.

Authorities said Walters has been placed on $25,000 bond on the child exploitation charge and $25,000 for the new charge.