An arrest warrant has been issued for the founder of a controversial 3D-printed gun company in connection to the alleged sexual assault of a minor, according to Texas authorities.
Suspect Cody Wilson, 30, owns Defense Distributed, which sells blueprints for producing plastic firearms using 3-D printers.
The alleged victim, an unnamed girl younger than 17, told a counselor she’d had sex with Wilson Aug. 15, 2018, in an Austin hotel before he paid her $500, according to the arrest warrant affidavit filed Wednesday in Travis County District Court.
On Aug. 22, Austin police said, they got a call from a counselor who reported that a client, a girl under the age of 17, had told her she’d had sex with a 30-year-old man on Aug. 15 and then gotten paid $500.
On Aug. 27, police said they were present as staff from the Center for Child Protection interviewed the victim. According to police, the victim said that she’d met the man on SugarDaddyMeet.com and that he’d used the screen name “Sanjuro.” The two exchanged phone numbers and talked via iMessages, she said.
A search of the victim’s phone uncovered messages to SugarDaddyMeet.com as well as links to messages from Sanjuro, according to police. And, in one message, Sanjuro identified himself as Cody Wilson, police said.
“Victim said that ‘Sanjuro’ described himself to the victim as a ‘big deal,’” according to an affidavit. Police said Wilson’s Texas driver’s license picture also matched the “Sanjuro” profile image on SugarDaddyMeet.com.
On Aug. 15, the victim and Wilson met at a coffee shop and left together in a black Ford Edge. Police said that vehicle was similar to a 2015 black Ford Edge registered with Wilson’s business, Defense Distributed.
Later, valet surveillance video from a hotel recorded the victim and Wilson getting out of the car, according to police.
Police said they reviewed hotel surveillance footage “showing the victim and Wilson exiting an elevator onto the seventh floor. … Hotel records showed that Wilson was the lone registered guest for room 718 on that date.”
According to the victim, Wilson allegedly sexually assaulted her and then “Wilson retrieved five $100.00 bills from a bag on the floor” and gave her the money.
Video showed the victim and Wilson leaving the hotel, according to the affidavit. The victim said he later dropped her off at a Whataburger.
Wilson is not in custody at this point, ABC Austin affiliate KVUE-TV reported.
ABC News’ attempts to reach Wilson were unsuccessful.
Wilson is a self-described “crypto-anarchist” at the center of a fierce legal battle over whether Americans should be able to print guns that would be unregulated and untraceable.
After Wilson in 2013 successfully fired a bullet from the world’s first 3D-printed handgun and posted its design online, the video got nearly half a million views, and the design was downloaded nearly 100,000 times. After a few days, the link was terminated by law enforcement officials.
Years of litigation followed, leading to a settlement in July allowing Wilson to re-release the gun’s downloadable blueprints, giving anyone with access to a 3D printer the ability to create their own so-called “ghost guns” – unregulated unregistered and untraceable firearms.
Over the summer, a federal judge temporarily stopped him from putting gun blueprints online and in August, a federal judge in Seattle extended the injunction, after a coalition of states and the District of Columbia said making plastic weapons available would create a public safety issue.
Later that month, Wilson said he’d started selling the plans for producing plastic firearms using 3-D printers despite an injunction blocking it because of concerns about public safety.
