I'm investigative reporter Rebecca Lindstrom.
Victims across the country are fighting
back against a plea deal in Athens.
They are hoping the parole board will do
what the District Attorney did not keep
a sexual predator behind bars for life.
Avery Pendergraph used hidden cameras
to capture pornographic images.
That he then posted to online
sites as far away as Russia.
Watching, recording,
posting your most private moments.
Hey, this is Sergeant Scott
Pratt with Athens Clarke
County Police Department.
That's the voice of Caitlyn
Brooks talking to police.
He started to be really creepy
and there was some weird things
going on in her bathroom.
Emily remembers when her sister Caitlin
rented a room to Avery Hogan Pendergraph. We
believe that he was using a camera,
a camera hidden in plain sight,
capturing images of her
naked in the bathroom,
Images police say were then posted on
**** sites and chat rooms with a picture
of her driver's license and credit card.
Police reports say he added messages
most too offensive to repeat,
but one reveals his intent.
I want to truly rob her of her private life
in a full and cruel degrading way.
Through the course of this
investigation, your name came up.
The police investigation eventually
led officers from Athens to a bedroom
inside his parents home in La Grange.
There they found several more cameras
hidden in a key fob than smoke alarm.
More than 100 pages detail the dozens
of accounts Pentograph created
to use the images he collected.
This cases started out small and gone crazy.
Local police, the GBI,
Homeland Security and even officers
in Russia worked together tracking
down accounts with names like
Atlanta Slot and Wife is My Slave.
I believe that he has photoshopped
your face onto certain bodies.
The hidden cameras had been placed
in bathrooms at a Starbucks church.
And dorm at UGA police say they found
documents on grooming children.
One e-mail discussed how to take
and keep a little girl for sex.
He was creating
images of children in addition to
possessing pornographic. Images
Pendergrass crime span a decade across 2
Georgia counties more than 140 miles apart.
Despite the distance,
prosecutors work together to create a
plan to keep him locked up for life.
But in an Athens Clarke County courtroom,
that plan, without warning, changed.
I've never felt so violated in my life.
Prosecutors were already
familiar with Pendergraph.
In 2014, he faced 21 felony
charges for invasion of privacy.
I just met him going up
the stairwell. Samantha,
one of Pendergrass first victims,
asked us to conceal her identity. He
had been begging me incessantly to
send him some pictures of myself
about five years later,
long after they had parted ways.
She would learn he posted those pictures,
along with her personal information, online.
And she wasn't the only victim.
Still, those 21 felonies
turned into two misdemeanors.
His punishment? Probation.
It was infuriating because
we knew that it wasn't over.
As soon as his probation was up,
Samantha says Pentagraph used
various fake profiles to reconnect.
And he quickly found new victims.
But it would take years for police
and his victims to find out.
Did you ever allow him to record
videos of you guys having sex?
Never. Never consented.
Anything like that? No.
No, I don't. Definitely not.
According to police reports,
Pendergraph wasn't just looking
for sexually explicit content.
He wanted control writing online.
Her body isn't hers anymore.
It is yours forever.
Your call or giving me a panic attack?
Do not call me again. This is
part of a call. Not with police,
but with Pendergraph in jail.
A call to his ex-girlfriend.
I'm calling you because I love you and
I feel like I'm gonna. You are a liar.
Everything you say is alive.
Police believe Pentegraph
sexually assaulted her,
then posted the images on **** sites.
They had already tracked down another
woman they believe he raped unconscious.
I have not done that to you.
Are you there? True?
County District Attorney
Herbert Cranford said.
That call would have been
a key piece of evidence
had the case gone to trial.
I do not believe he's redeemable.
I don't think he's that hard to say.
I mean knowing that I don't say that often,
but there are people we prosecute that I
believe that about and he's one of them.
This is just one case that led to a
lawsuit in Athens accusing the District
Attorney of failing to do her job.
Shortly after taking office,
Deborah Gonzalez sent a memo to her
staff setting the tone for how she
wanted cases handled in her office.
One of the notes asked prosecutors to
take a closer look at cases seeking
mandatory minimum prison sentences.
Victims wonder if that policy
impacted their fight for justice.
Avery Hogan, Pendergraph.
A sexual predator with charges in two
Georgia counties accused of secretly
recording people to post naked images
of them on **** and social media sites.
11 Alive spoke with one of his victims.
So I spent many years in therapy,
really trying to trust my own
judgment about other people
in Troop County.
Pendergraph pled guilty to
bracketeering invasion of privacy
and sexual exploitation of children.
His sentence? 50 years behind bars,
or at least on paper.
In reality, for those kinds of crimes,
Pendergraph could go free in seven years.
It happened before true County District
Attorney Herbert Cranford recalled
the case of Peter Mallory. The
judge gave him a 1000 year sentence.
Like to make a point, I think,
but the parole board let him go
after seven years and five months.
The only way to guarantee a longer prison
sentence for Pendergraph would be a guilty
plea to rape and aggravated ******.
They come with a mandatory
minimum of 25 years in prison
without the possibility of parole.
But those alleged crimes happened in Athens.
It would be up to the DA there to prosecute,
according to emails obtained
by 11 Live Investigates.
At one point they did agree Pendergraph
should face life in prison.
But when Pendergraph refused to plead guilty,
the prosecutor in Athens decided
to dismiss the charges rather
than fight him in court.
I I can't imagine a detective seeing
these terrible things that this person
has done day after day and then to
see it all just disappear. Indeed,
the lead detective stated his disgust
in this e-mail to the DA writing.
There are many sad things to come
from this case, but one of the most
disheartening is that your office.
Did not even try.
The prosecutor behind that
decision would not comment,
but District Attorney Deborah
Gonzalez defended the deal.
Because we had victims and we wanted
to get justice for those victims.
They did not want to go forward with a trial.
They did not want to testify.
But in a letter written by one of
the victims to the parole board,
she says the DA's office told her
Pendergraph was pleading guilty to ******.
And that whatever the charge.
It would add to his time behind bars.
One of them actually wrote any
written statement to the parole board.
I feel very lied to and
betrayed by the Athens DA.
Yeah, I would have liked her to have
written that to me so that I would
know one of the victims would not
have been able to respond because
that she actually took her own life.
Were you aware of that?
No, I was not.
Instead, the DA's office told
the judge it wanted to drop her
charges because that victim.
Caitlin Brooks had left the state.
I'm just so angry.
Hurt so bad.
Her father is still barely able to
speak about his daughter's decision.
Never not blame him for all of it.
After the pornographic posts were discovered,
Caitlin couldn't stay focused at work.
She dropped out of law school.
She moved back home but could
never restore her sense of safety.
I remember in the middle of
the night she woke me up.
Dad, I think somebody's
in the attic with cameras,
with cameras and stuff.
I said baby, there's no way.
The same year Pentagraph took his plea,
about 1/3 of the cases on the
court docket were thrown out.
22% of the felony charges that remained
were also dismissed or reduced to
a misdemeanor as part of a plea.
One of the 18 trials,
the office lost 14 charges like murder,
aggravated assault and child molestation.
Gone. Even now,
court records document cases delayed or
even dismissed because the DA's office is
severely understaffed or not prepared.
It's why Pendergrass victims are
now appealing to the Parole Board to
consider the risk of his release.
Help me understand the impact
that this has had
on your life. An extreme sense of shame.
The victim impact statements are
full of the same words shame,
anxiety and depression.
And pendergrass.
Victims believe that was
always a part of the plan,
part of his betrayal.
I want you to know the name Hogan
Pendergraph and if you ever come
across him on the street one day,
I want you to run in the other direction.
Pendergraph will be eligible
for parole in about four years
at sentencing in Troup County.
Pendergraph said immaturity,
coupled with addictions to Adderall alcohol
and *********** impacted his actions.
And he apologized to the women hurt.
You can read his full
statement at 11 alive.com.