Former sexual predator charged with sexually abusing girls, facing more charges

A former Bradenton sexual predator already charged with sexually abusing four girls is now facing additional charges that he sexually abused two of them on other occasions.

Gary Adams Meeks, 35, of Parrish, was charged Thursday with four counts of capital sexual battery on girls who were ages 10 and 11 years old at the time. He was already facing three counts of capital sexual battery and two counts of lewd and lascivious molestation in that case stemming from 2014.

Meek is also charged with four counts of capital sexual battery and five counts of lewd and lascivious molestation in two additional cases that involved a 5-year-old girl and her 9-year-old sister at the time. Meeks also faces violation of probation charges for fraud convictions.

Meeks has been held without bond since his initial arrest March 17.

On Friday afternoon, Meeks refused to appear before Circuit Judge Gilbert Smith Jr. for a first-appearance hearing to face his new charges. Smith set bonds on the new charges totaling $2 million but Meeks will be held without bond because of his other charges.

Assistant Public Defender Franklin Roberts had argued that unlike the prior charges, he did not feel that the evidence of guilt was great enough to hold him without bond.

“I don’t know that it rises to that level,” Roberts said.

The prosecutor argued that each of the victims accounts of what happened to them shared similar facts.

The allegations first came to light when investigators were interviewing the five-year-old victim regarding an unrelated case in March. Meeks was initially charged with one count of capital sexual battery as a result.

In a third case filed against him, Meeks was charged with 10 counts of possession of child pornography after the images or videos were found on his cell phone.

In 2013, Meeks lost his sexual predator status after he was allowed to withdraw a previous plea of no contest to a charge of false imprisonment from 2003. Meeks had initially been charged with sexual battery and lewd and lascivious molestation in that case in which the victims involved were a 3-year-old boy and a 5-year-old girl.

Formal charges in the 2003 case were later amended more than once, eventually being reduced to false imprisonment. His vacated plea was a part of an agreement he entered where he agreed to testify against his co-defendant, his girlfriend at that time, who took part in the sexual battery.

Meeks’s criminal history also includes convictions for scheme to defraud $20,000 or less, fraudulent use of a credit card, and felony battery.

This story was originally published August 5, 2016 at 5:13 PM with the headline "Former sexual predator charged with sexually abusing girls, facing more charges."