Chris Michalopoulos sentenced for sex crimes in dodgy Canberra motel room with teen ‘girlfriend’
A father of three has been sentenced in court over a sexual relationship he had with a teenager, after the cops busted him in a hotel room where he was watching porn with the girl.
Canberra Star
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A recently divorced father-of-three had his pants around his ankles when he was trying to “barricade” himself inside a seedy Canberra hotel room to keep police from barging in on him watching pornography with a 15-year-old girl.
Chris Michalopoulos, 46, of Scullin, told police he and the girl were “just hanging out” despite Michalopoulos being heard saying “dirty girl” and “that’s nice, good girl”.
Michalopoulos fronted the ACT Supreme Court on Wednesday where he was jailed for five years and five months, having earlier pleaded guilty to maintaining a sexual relationship with a young person, breaching a personal protection order and breaching a family violence order.
Michalopoulos has caught the bus to the $74.20 a night Forrest Hotel with his victim, and after being arrested, she told police she loved him and that the two had smoked cannabis and ice together.
Michalopoulos told police he and the girl were in a “real” relationship and that he was her “rescuer”.
A raid on the hotel room uncovered a porn video called “cum dumpster”, a laptop, sex toys, and an ice pipe.
Michalopoulos, an unemployed labourer who was living in public housing at the time, had found the laptop during an afternoon of dumpster diving with the girl at Dickson.
The hotel was one of four Michalopoulos took the girl to in an attempt to avoid police, who were suspicious he was breaching an order banning him from being within 100m of the girl.
Michalopoulos’s lies about the romp in the hotel room came undone when police swabbed him and his underwear for DNA, finding the girl’s saliva.
Justice David Mossop said Michalopoulos’s offending was not as bad as another recent Canberra case, where a 48-year-old man plied sex from a teenage girl in exchange for meth.
“Notwithstanding that, there was joint use of methamphetamine ... there was not the clear drugs-for-sex relationship that existed in (the other case),” Justice Mossop said.
Justice Mossop said Michalopoulos knew it was a crime to have sex with the girl and repeatedly flouted the police order to not go near her.
Michalopoulos will be eligible for parole in August 2022.