Mom sentenced for role in years of child rape

A mother who admitted under oath that she allowed her daughter to sustain years of child sex abuse was sentenced to time-served on July 26 in Jefferson County. Samantha Coleman, also known as Samantha Knighten, was originally charged in 2019 with child sex trafficking violations for knowing that a man was raping her daughter – and makng the child available to the predator anyway. Coleman was released this week from all bond conditions with misdemeanor sentencing at the request of prosecution because she testified against the abuser during his 2022 trial.

Coleman’s co-defendant, Dusty Wayne Authement, was indicted in 2019 for five counts of sexual assault of a child, two counts of continuous sex abuse of a child, and one count of indecency with a child; he stood before a jury of his peers in 2022, electing to defend himself in trial.

Through testimony Authement elicited from his young victims, his stepchildren, as well as Coleman and assorted family members, the jury heard of years of torment at the hand of Authement under the same roof shared with mom, Coleman.

“I remember you being a disciplinarian, and you would spank them – and do something harsh with them,” Coleman said during the trial, adding that Authement would routinely lash-out.

According to a probable cause affidavit obtained by The Examiner via an information request, on Sept. 19, 2018, the complainant made an outcry to her grandmother that Authement had been touching her vaginal area since she was 11 years old; he began sexually assaulting her at age 13.

“On Sept. 20, 2018, (she) had a SANE (Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner) exam at CHRISTUS St. Elizabeth,” reads the affidavit penned by Port Arthur Police Department’s Detective Mendez. “She made an outcry to nurses that the accused, Dusty, first started molesting her when she was 11. Her mother was at work, and, one night, the accused told her to follow him into the kitchen.”

The abuse continued from there. The victim said Authement, “used her like a sex slave,” saying the sexual abuse started in 2013, when the family was living in Athens. The affidavit states Authement “put his hands inside of her underwear and rubbed her vagina.” She revealed this abuse continued for two years.

In 2015, the family moved to Beaumont, where her abusive stepfather would escalate his sadistic behavior. According to Detective Mendez, “On or about April 29, 2015, a month after her 13th birthday, Dusty went upstairs and entered (the girl’s) bedroom and told her ‘It is time.’”

The victim said Authement then “took my virginity.” The victim stated that, when Authement needed sex, he would use her. The affidavit describes the victim’s memories of being abused whenever Authement thought fit, reading, “On May 1, 2018, while living in an RV (in) Port Arthur, (she) was performing oral sex on Dusty when her 11-year-old brother turned and saw her. Later that day, Dusty told everyone to leave except (her). While in the RV, Dusty told (her) ‘This is the last time,’ and he (raped) her again.”

Coleman testified that she confronted Authement about the abuse, and he promised not to do it again. That proved to be a lie.

According to information presented in court, brother Noah Authement was taken into Child Protective Services’ (CPS) care in the months after he witnessed his father raping his stepsister. Five months after witnessing that abuse, Noah drowned Oct. 17, 2018, while under the supervision of The Children’s Center Inc.

The shelter provides emergency shelter to children and youth, ages 5 to 17, who are in the custody of Child Protective Services and need care while waiting to return home or to be placed permanently.

“I filed a motion to dismiss in the trafficking case,” the Jefferson County prosecutor advised Judge John Stevens in Criminal District Court on July 26, adding that a lesser indictment was handed up on June 28 for the state jail felony of abandonment or endangering a child. In normal state jail felony sentencing, the maximum punishment is up to 2 years in state jail and a fine; the prosecution further agreed to even lesser penalty of a maximum of one year in jail and a fine under a special provision of law that allows: “reduction of state jail felony punishment to misdemeanor punishment.”

Further, allowing Coleman credit for time she spent in jail when arrested for child sex trafficking is also something “totally proper” the prosecutor posed with no objection.

Authement, at the conclusion of his 2022 trial, was sentenced to life in prison – “plus some extra years,” the prosecutor said.