Grandville man, 54, admits to secretly recording girl engaging in sexual activity

GRAND RAPIDS, MI – A Grandville man has pleaded guilty to child sexual exploitation after recording a girl under 18 engaging in sexual activity.

Thomas Aaron Hungerford, 54, told the FBI he watched the children through windows at night and filmed a 16- or 17-year-old girl.

In an online conversation with a man under investigation in Omaha, Nebraska, Hungerford wrote, “I’ve been spying on her and her younger sister for about 6 months. It’s been a while since I looked at her…I recorded her in a VERY intimate moment with her boyfriend,” he said, according to an FBI complaint.

Hungerford pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Paul Maloney in Kalamazoo. Hungerford faces at least 15 years and up to 30 years in prison when he is sentenced on February 18.

Hungerford admitted in a written plea agreement that on Aug. 16, 2023, in Grandville, he used an iPhone to record a female under 18 engaging in explicit sexual activity without her knowledge or consent.

“Protecting children and adolescents from sexual exploitation is an essential part of our mission,” U.S. Attorney Mark Totten said in a statement.

“I am grateful to the FBI for its swift and thoughtful work on this case and for the work the Bureau does every day to protect children.”

Hungerford was jailed after his May 24 arrest.

The FBI seized his cell phone during a child pornography investigation conducted by the FBI’s Omaha, Nebraska division.

He told an FBI special agent that he took photos of children in public places and stalked children in parking lots outside a dance studio, court records said.

He used an alias, “Barry Sanders,” during online chats with a man under investigation in Omaha. They distributed 2,238 messages and 679 media files, which included child pornography, Aaron Eastham, an FBI special agent in Grand Rapids, wrote in a criminal complaint.

Hungerford talked about parking outside a dance studio but complained it was too far to take photos, the FBI said.

“I kind of seem outside the place where all the parents are parked for obvious reasons. I can see them coming and going MUCH better, but they are a little further off. Next time I’m going to jump right into the mix,” Hungerford wrote in an online chat, the FBI said.

He admitted to breaking into two homes to steal children’s clothes and underwear and to entering a girl’s locker room at an undisclosed high school to steal underwear, the FBI said in court filings.