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‘Marrying Millions’ hotel and development mogul Bill Hutchinson charged with rape in Orange County

A police booking photo.
Bill Hutchinson was arrested and released on bond this week in Texas after a 17-year-old girl told police there that she had been sexually assaulted. He also faces rape and sexual assault charges in Orange County, where an arrest warrant has been issued.
(Highland Park, Texas, Police Department)
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Bill Hutchinson, a prominent Dallas-area developer who stars in the reality TV show “Marrying Millions,” has been charged in Orange County with rape and sexual assault involving two teenage girls, the district attorney said Friday.

Hutchinson, 63, was charged with one count of rape of an unconscious person and five misdemeanors counts of nonconsensual touching, Orange County Dist. Atty. Todd Spitzer said.

An arrest warrant has been issued for the multimillionaire developer, who owns a home in the Emerald Bay community of Laguna Beach, court records show.

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Prosecutors say Hutchinson sexually assaulted two 16-year-old girls while they were vacationing with him in April in California. He raped one of them on April 1 and sexually assaulted the other four times during that trip, the district attorney said. He then returned to the property a second time with one of the girls and committed a sexual battery on her, according to court documents.

Attorney John Manly, who represents one of the girls, said that she was 16 when she was assaulted but that she met Hutchinson when she was 15 through one of his daughters.

The Orange County charges come on the heels of Hutchinson’s arrest Wednesday in Texas on suspicion of sexual assault involving a 17-year-old.

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According to an affidavit in that case, the 17-year-old reported the incident to police in early June and alleged that Hutchinson provided her and other minors with alcohol and let them smoke marijuana at his Highland Park, Texas, home in May.

The teen told investigators she woke up and Hutchinson was touching her without her consent.

He has been charged in that case with inappropriate touching, including massages and groping, a second-degree felony under Texas law.

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“Anyone who knows me in this city knows that I am not capable of assault, sexual or otherwise,” Hutchinson said in a statement following his release in Texas on a $30,000 bond. “Hopefully all of my colleagues and friends will give me the benefit of the doubt until I prove my innocence in court.”

According to the Texas affidavit, which was obtained by the Dallas Morning News, investigators obtained video of another teen stating that Hutchinson had displayed similar behavior with her at his home in Laguna Beach.

Hutchinson, the founder of Dallas-based real estate firm Dunhill Partners, has been featured on Lifetime’s “Marrying Millions,” which follows wealthy people as they pursue romantic relationships with partners who are far below their income level — or age. In the show, Hutchinson is engaged to 23-year-old Brianna Ramirez, whom he met at a Tex-Mex restaurant in Dallas where she was a hostess. He has been married twice before and has six children.

Hutchinson told the Dallas Morning News in a 2019 story that he did not feel his age. “I don’t feel like a grandfather, and I don’t even like being called a grandfather,” he said. “I don’t want to fit that role for a long time.”

Hutchinson could not be reached for comment Friday. If convicted of all charges in Orange County, he faces eight years in state prison and 2 1/2 years in jail.

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