Hawley Man Charged With Sexual Assault

A Hawley man is facing felony charges for alleged sexual assault of a teenage girl in 2024 and 2025.  20-year-old Harrison Heath Hinz has been charged in Clay County District Court with two counts of first degree criminal sexual contact, two counts of third degree criminal sexual contact and three counts of fourth degree criminal sexual contact.  According to the complaint, the Clay County Sheriff’s Office was told this past May about a possible sexual assault that took place in Hawley in 2024 and 2025.  A detective interviewed the victim, who was 14 and 15 at the time of the alleged assaults.  Hinz was 18 and is roughly 3 and a half years older than the victim.  The victim told investigators that she and Hinz knew each other from an after school activity at her school and the two began exchanging messages on social media.  She said Hinz made inappropriate comments about her appearance and asked her once for explicit photos, which she did not send.  The complaint describes three separate incidents between fall 2024 and January 2025 where the victim says Hinz subjected her to unwanted sexual contact, leading to an alleged sexual assault in a school storage room in January 2025.  Hinz was taken into custody and a judge ordered him held pending further proceedings.