Huddleston Charged With Promoting Sexual Performance of a Minor Under Age 16

Billy Huddleston appeared before Adair County District Judge Michael Loy on Wednesday alongside his attorney, C.B. Bates, for a pretrial conference in reference to five felony charges of video voyeurism.

Huddleston allegedly filmed five individuals by holding a phone camera above stall walls in the men’s restroom at Columbia Walmart.

Huddleston was presented with three additional charges stemming from the five videos that police officers were able to recover from his phone and was subsequently arrested and lodged in the Adair County Regional Jail on a $150,000 cash bond. Huddleston was previously released on a $10,000 bail. He did not enter into a plea due to his attorney’s request to waive his case to the grand jury.

Arresting officer, Charles Greer of Columbia Police Department, said they were able to identify three of the individuals in the videos and determined that all three are minors under the age of 16.

“These new charges came from investigating his phone at the state cyber lab earlier this week,” said Greer. “We are still going through other digital property that was seized from our search warrant.”

Greer said that the additional charges are for two counts of promoting a sexual performance of a minor under the age of 16, class B felonies, and one count of attempting to promote a sexual performance of a minor under 16, a class C felony.

Greer went on to say that law enforcement will continue working to identify individuals from the two remaining videos recovered from Huddleston’s phone.

When asked about the differentiating circumstances between the charges of promoting a sexual performance of a minor under the age of 16 and attempting to promote a sexual performance of a minor under 16, county attorney Jennifer Hutchison-Corbin would only say that she believes the evidence supports the charges.

“I believe what the videos show meets the charges,” said Hutchison-Corbin. “On the attempting to promote charge, that could mean that there was an attempt to video but was unsuccessful.”

Huddleston’s case has been waived to the grand jury. Formal indictments and additional charges could be forthcoming based on the continued investigation. Be sure to continue to check adairvoice.com for any future updates on the case.

By Adam Capps

Assistant Editor

adam@adairvoice.com