After facing an onslaught of sustained objections and admonishments from the judge while the accused pedophile attempted to represent himself, a local – now-convicted – child abuser earned a lifetime behind bars Dec. 5 from a Jefferson County jury who heard his stepchildren detail sexual assaults they suffered.
Dusty Wayne Authement, 37, was indicited for five counts of sexual assault of a child, two counts of continuous sex abuse of a child and another for indecency with a child, stood before a jury of his peers in the waning days of November. By Dec. 5, that jury had sentenced the convict to live the rest of his days in prison, but not before having to sit through hours of meandering – and judicially improper – questions posed by the defendant who fired his court-appointed attorney.
For nearly the entirety of the week-long trial, Authement asked a series of long-winded, “do-you-remember” questions, often evoking visceral responses from his victims – who were his stepchildren – and their family members who took the stand.
Authement asked his victims whether they remembered him teaching them how to sing, defend themselves through martial arts and keep a tidy household. Many of his questions were met with tearful or enraged responses.
With her first cross-examining question for the first of Authement’s victims to take the stand, Prosecutor Kim Hobbs-Duchamp asked the child victim whether the stepdad teaching her to sing gave him the “right to stick his penis” in her.
The question was met with a prompt: “No.”
Authement posed questions like, “Do you remember the time me and you was trying to get them an American Idol tryout and it being a hoax?” to the mother of his victims, Samantha Coleman and, “Do you remember the time whenever we were living in your mother’s driveway in the RV, that we paid $200 to Jesse’s dad to get all the kids that $800 four-wheeler they wanted?”
The few questions Hobbs-Duchamp couldn’t shoot down for being leading were met with directly conflicting answers.
“Do you remember, most of the time, when they would be gotten on to, it would be explaining and lecturing the problem that happened and how to fix that problem and avoid that problem?” Authement asked Coleman.
“I remember you being a disciplinarian, and you would spank them – and do something harsh with them,” the victims’ mother retorted.
“I object, your honor,” interjected Authement, the impromptu attorney. “She’s not answering the question.”
“You asked the question,” said Judge Stevens, halting proceedings. “She has a fair opportunity to answer the question; she’s allowed to answer. You asked the question, and you can’t control the answer, as well, sir.”
“The answer that she’s giving is not the answer,” Authement began before Judge Stevens’ authority intervened.
“Sir, are you going to argue with the court?” asked the judge.
Under Duchamp’s cross examination, Coleman admitted that Authement’s lashing out when faced with a response he didn’t like was a commonplace occurrence while living with him.
Authement then went on to grill one of his stepchild victims, whose name The Examiner is withholding due to the nature of the crime. She endured a variety of “painful” questions from her abuser, including why she didn’t come forward sooner.
“You threatened that if we told – you would find us,” she said. “You are a very scary person, and I know the extent you would have gone to because all you did was threaten and abuse us.
“I was scared of the things you told us you would do to us if anyone found out.”
Authement took prolonged pauses intermittently as he interrogated his victims.
“Do you remember how much your mother and I loved y’all,” he asked her through tears, “and made sure that we raised y’all correctly?”
“I wouldn’t say ‘correctly,’” she responded.
The victim said confronting her abuser on the stand was one of the hardest things she’s ever had to do, saying she’s now braver and stronger than the little girl Authement abused.
Years of abuse
According to a probable cause affidavit obtained by The Examiner via an information request, on Sept. 19, 2018, the complainant made an outcry to her grandmother that her stepfather/the accused, Dusty Wayne Authement, had been touching her vaginal area since she was 11 years old and sexually assaulted her when she was 13 years old.
“On Sept. 20, 2018, (she) had a SANE (Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner) exam at CHRISTUS St. Elizabeth,” reads the affidavit penned by Port Arthur Police Department’s Detective Mendez. “She made an outcry to nurses that the accused, Dusty, first started molesting her when she was 11. Her mother was at work, and, one night, the accused told her to follow him into the kitchen.
“The accused lifted up her skirt and started touching her vaginal area over her panties. She said he got that ‘predator sound, like that heavy breathing’ and he put his hand under her underwear and started rubbing her. That same night, he made (his 13-year-old stepdaughter) ‘give him a hand job.’”
The victim said Dusty “used her like a sex slave,” saying the sexual abuse started in 2013, when the girl was 11 years old. The family was living in Athens at the time. The affidavit states Authement “put his hands inside of her underwear and rubbed her vagina.”
She revealed this abuse continued for two years.
In 2015, the family moved to Beaumont, where her abusive stepfather would escalate his abusive behavior. According to Detective Mendez, “On or about April 29, 2015, a month after her 13th birthday, Dusty went upstairs and entered (the girl’s) bedroom and told her ‘It was time.’”
The victim said Authement then “took my virginity.”
The victim stated when Authement needed sex, he would use her. He would pick one week per month and touch her everyday, but only had sex two-to-three times during that week. He would repeat the pattern the following month.
The affidavit goes on to describe the victim’s memories of being abused whenever Authement thought fit, reading, “On May 1, 2018, while living in an RV (in) Port Arthur, (she) was performing oral sex on Dusty when her 11-year-old brother turned and saw her. Later that day, Dusty told everyone to leave except (her). While in the RV, Dusty told (her) ‘This is the last time,’ and he (raped) her again.”
According to information presented in court, brother Noah Authement, 11, was taken into Child Protective Services’ (CPS) care in the months after he witnessed his father raping his stepsister. Five months after witnessing that abuse, Noah drowned Oct. 17, 2018, while under the supervision of The Children’s Center Inc.
The shelter provides emergency shelter to children and youth, ages 5 to 17, who are in the custody of Child Protective Services and need care while waiting to return home or to be placed permanently.
Noah’s siblings unanimously blame Dusty for their brother’s death, but the object of their ire will spend the rest of his life behind bars.