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Victim helps police catch sexual assault suspect facing new charges
Jeanie Fulcher was just 7 years old when her cousin by marriage robbed her of her innocence. Derrick Crooms plead guilty of that crime back in 1996. Now, 25 years later, he faces similar charges. When Fulcher heard of the 18 new counts of sexual assault against children, she did everything she could to find him and eventually got a tip on his whereabouts, leading police to his capture.
NEWTON COUNTY, Ga. - After Derrick Crooms was removed from the Georgia Sex Offender Registry, he was again arrested on 18 charges related to molestation, incest, and rape.
"He took my innocence when I was seven," said Jeanie Fulcher, now 34. "I don’t know if you can ever really heal from that."
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Newton County man arrested on 18 counts of sexual abuse against children
A registered sex offender, who was removed from the list back in 2017, has been arrested again and charged with 18 counts of sexual abuse against children. Derrick Crooms, 49, was arrested by U.S. Marshals at a Stone Mountain home on Friday morning.
Fulcher said she decided to publicly come forward with her story to encourage other victims to go talk to law enforcement.
Court records show that Crooms pleaded guilty in 1996 to molestation charges for what he did to Fulcher, his cousin by marriage. A judge sentenced him to 20 years, but he only served four.
"It happened to me for a year before I had the courage to tell someone about it," Fulcher said.
On Friday, U.S. Marshalls arrested the Covington man at a house in Stone Mountain.
"In December 2020, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation’s Child Exploitation and Computer Crimes Unit received a request for assistance from the Oconee County Sheriff’s Office in the investigation of numerous sex offenses against children by Crooms," GBI Assistant Special Agent in Charge Lindsay Marchant said in a news release. "The investigation revealed that these crimes allegedly occurred in Newton County, Georgia, as well as several different locations throughout the United States."
In 2017, Crooms successfully petitioned a judge to remove his name from the sex offender registry despite Fultcher’s objections and his guilty plea.
"Their argument was that he was a changed man and he was a model citizen that didn’t get in trouble anymore, hasn’t committed crimes since," she said.
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Victim of sexual assault speaks out to try to empower others to come forward
Derrick Crooms pleaded guilty to molesting his cousin, Jeanie Fulcher back in 1996. He’s facing new allegations of doing the same thing to other little girls in his family 25 years later. Fulcher says she’s decided to speak out publicly to encourage other victims to come forward to law enforcement.
Fulcher believes these new charges show that he hasn’t changed, and he should have never been taken off the sex offender registry or put back on the streets.
"I do think that our justice system has failed us," she said. "I believe that once you plead guilty to raping children, molestation charges, you shouldn’t get out of prison at all. You shouldn’t get a second chance."
His removal from the sex offender registry meant he could travel freely with his wife, Rachel Overton, who the GBI alleges failed to stop the serial molestations.
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