Bart Joel Criaco molested drugged teen girl, possessed 43.66g pure meth

A roofer helped prey on teen girls at a Queensland pool before luring them to an apartment where one was plied with drugs and abused. Now, his name and court case details can be revealed.

Bart Joel Criaco.

“She tastes like fresh milk”.

This was the confronting caption an ex-Sunshine Coast roofer sent along with a photo which showed him molesting a 14-year-old girl who Rockhampton Supreme Court heard was bullied into taking drugs to the point of unconsciousness.

Bart Joel Criaco, now 39, was busted for the life-ruining act after the teen victim escaped the clutches of two men and ran to safety.

Police matched DNA on the victim’s body to Criaco after finding the message on his phone, the court heard.

He pleaded guilty on October 12 to one count of indecent treatment of a child, one of distributing child explotiation material, one of possessing over two grams of a schedule one drug and two counts of possessing a dangerous drug.

Crown prosecutor Cameron Keast said Criaco’s alleged co-accused, Joshua James Brown, who is still before the courts, allegedly gave the victim and her friend methamphetamine and amphetamine.

Mr Brown is charged with one count of aggravated drug supply by supply to a person aged under 16, one of indecent treatment of a child under 16, one of making CEM, two of possessing drugs, one possession of drugs over two grams, one possess property suspected to be proceeds of a drug crime.

He has not yet entered a plea.

The Supreme Court heard Mr Brown allegedly met the girls at a Central Queensland pool in March 2022 and offered them drugs before inviting them back to his apartment.

Justice Graeme Crow said the victim’s friend willing consumed drugs offered to her but the victim hesitated.

“The complainant’s younger friend then convinced the complainant to try the substance and told her quote ‘she felt really good’,” he said.

Justice Crow said Mr Brown then allegedly handed the victim drugs which she consumed through a straw.

The court heard the two girls left the apartment to rejoin other friends, but Mr Brown allegedly followed them and convinced the victim to return to his apartment.

When she got there, she sat on the bed and passed out but later woke to find Criaco, and allegedly Mr Brown, molesting her.

She managed to flee and when police arrived at the address, they found 43.66 grams of pure methamphetamines in 64.972 grams of substance in six clip seal bags, 51.54g of marijuana in two clip seal bags and two MDMA tablets in the apartment.

Criaco threatened self-harm when he was arrested.

‘Happy and great student to a life significantly derailed’

“The victim impact statement really speaks to the impact on the complainant; it has done nothing short of ruining her life,” Mr Keast said.

Justice Crow said the victim’s life had been “significantly derailed” as a result of the trauma from this offence.

“Before the event, the child was a confident child, a good student, a great student, happy and she was achieving well at school,” he said.

“I am told she was quite intelligent and would seem to have had a bright future.”

Justice Crow said the victim disengaged from her family with police having to attend her house twice in the following weeks when she was involved in an incident with a knife and after she was smashing things and being verbally and physically abusive.

“Then she spent the next eight to 10 months running away from home, couch surfing with friends and living an itinerant lifestyle,” he said.

The victim’s entire family relationship was “fractured” and despite psychological treatment, she still had severe anxiety and suicidal thoughts, Justice Crow noted.

“She’s still having flashbacks,” he said.

“She hasn’t yet returned to school and she may not.

“She has tried, on several occasions, to attend home schooling but she has been unable to participate.”

‘I don’t have sympathies for someone who gets psychotic because they take drugs’

Criaco, since his arrest, had received a preliminary mental health diagnosis of drug induced psychosis, his barrister Maree Willey told the court.

He’d started using drugs in 2013/14 and had been living a in a drugs cycle for the past five years where he would use illicit substances for six months at a time and then “pull himself out and go to work” for about six months.

Ms Willey said this cycle was sparked by a personal tragedy in 2017 when his twins were stillborn.

“I don’t have sympathies for someone who gets psychotic because they take drugs which causes the psychosis,” Justice Crow said.

Criaco, formerly from the Sunshine Coast, had also been busted driving while demerit point disqualified on the Capricorn Coast in September 2021.

He otherwise had a two-page criminal record including convictions for three drug offences.

Ms Willey said her client had never been in custody prior to being held on remand for 572 days for the most recent offending.

She said Criaco had family support and he planned to return to work, having previously worked as a roofer and disability support worker, once released from prison.

The court heard he had been heavily involved in volunteer work when he lived on the Sunshine Coast.

Justice Crow sentenced Criaco to a five-years’ in jail, declared the 572 days of presentence custody as time served and gave him immediate parole eligibility.

Originally published as Bart Joel Criaco molested drugged teen girl, possessed 43.66g pure meth