Tech Glitch Allows Florida Sex Offender Time to Disappear

Michael Hunt didn’t actually fail to appear for his pre-trial hearing on charges of unlawful sexual acts with a minor and aggravated assault three days before last week’s quadruple shooting on Allen Avenue, for which he is a “person of interest.”



Hunt, 53 and a registered sex offender, walked away undetected after a prosecutor announced at the beginning of his hearing that there was a new charge of sexual battery involving a minor against him, but it couldn’t be found in the system and no one had a hard copy of it in hand. The defense attorney, meanwhile, said it probably was just confusion over the original charge.



Circuit Court Judge Chris Patterson agreed to place the hearing on hold, essentially and asked Hunt to take a seat in the courtroom while his attorney and prosecutor figured it out.



Forty-five minutes later, the warrant confirmed and in hand, Hunt was nowhere to be found and Patterson ordered him held without bond on a charge of failure to appear because he left before the hearing was completed.



“We expect nothing but great things from the electronic filing system but sometimes we just need to go with paper,” said State Attorney Glenn Hess, whose prosecutor said at the beginning of the hearing that there was an active warrant for Hunt’s arrest for a new child sex charge. “This was one of those times.”



One person died at the scene of the quadruple shooting and three others remain in critical condition