Georgia man gets four life sentences plus 110 years for raping, molesting Macon girl

Jun. 17—A Macon man who lured a teenage girl to a motel room with promises of a Victoria's Secret modeling contract was this week convicted of raping, sexually assaulting and molesting her.

Derrick Dewayne Sallette, 54, a used-car dealer who worked out of his home on Old Lundy Road, had been close to the girl's family in June 2016, Bibb County prosecutors said, when he began grooming the child.

Prosecutors said the girl was under the age of 15 when the assaults began and that the abuse lasted until May 2018. The case came to light when the girl called the police after she made audio recordings of Sallette threatening to reveal nude photographs of her.

Assistant Bibb County District Attorney Dawn Baskin, who prosecuted the case, said the assaults often happened at a Riverside Drive motel, where the girl was sometimes photographed in lingerie as part of a fictitious modeling deal, a ploy Sallette used to entice the girl.

Baskin said that as a cover story, Sallette made the girl tell her family she was out babysitting. The girl later told the authorities that the assaults took place two or three times a week for more than a year and a half.

Sallette also made videos of the girl performing sex acts.

The case went to trial this week. Sallette did not testify.

Jurors — who were shown the videos as well as photographs that Sallette took of the girl — on Wednesday deliberated for less than 30 minutes before convicting Sallette of charges that included rape, child molestation and sexual exploitation.

Sallette was convicted in the 1994 gunpoint-kidnapping of a 15-year-old Southwest High School student, whom he took to a southside motel and tried to rape. He was sent to prison in 1995 and released in 2007.

Before sentencing Sallette to four life terms in prison plus 110 years behind bars, Judge Jeffery O. Monroe told him, "Breathe deeply, Mr. Sallette. This will probably be the last time you breathe free air."

In a statement posted on Facebook, District Attorney Anita Reynolds Howard said, "This type of trauma has lasting effects on our youth and robs them of hope for their future. This trial and sentence stand as a reminder that my office will not tolerate the harming of children."

This story was originally published June 17, 202212:33 PM.

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