Update 1:22pm CT, Sept. 21: Wilson was arrested in Taiwan by authorities today. He will likely be deported back to the U.S. to face charges on of sexual assault.
Gun activist Cody Wilson, who in August released blueprints that allowed anyone with a 3D printer to print guns in their own home, is facing sexual assault charges. According to an arrest affidavit filed Wednesday in Austin, Texas, Wilson paid to have sex with a 16-year-old girl.
According to the Austin American Statesman, authorities were still working on Wednesday afternoon to bring Wilson back to the U.S. from Taiwain, where he was last known to be.
The counselor who had been working with the victim reported the incident to Austin police on Aug. 15, the Austin-American Statesman reports. According to the affidavit, Wilson, 30, paid the girl $500 to have sex with him in a hotel room in Austin after they met through dating site SugarDaddyMeet. Having sex with a minor is a second-degree felony in Texas.
Per the affidavit, the victim said that Wilson referred to himself as “Sanjuro” in his username but identified himself as “Cody Wilson” to the girl and mentioned that he was a “big deal.” Wilson and the girl also exchanged nude photos, according to the charging documents.
Wilson, via his company Defense Distributed, has spent years embroiled in legal battles over his blueprints for 3D-printed guns. In August, he made blueprints available online for his single-shot pistol, the Liberator. The U.S. State Department issued an emergency order demanding he remove the post. Though the Trump administration settled with Wilson, allowing him to distribute the blueprints online, a multistate lawsuit is challenging the settlement.
Wilson also founded Hatreon, a crowdfunding site for white nationalists and neo-Nazis that was created after the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.
H/T Vice News
