MS Coast man headed to prison after pleading guilty to impregnating 15-year-old

A man from Biloxi pleaded guilty to impregnating a 15-year-old but tried to downplay his responsibility by claiming he was on drugs, the Harrison County District Attorney’s Office announced Monday.

Derrick Lee Bowie, 45, will spend 25 years in prison on a sexual battery charge after the teenager gave birth at Gulfport Memorial Hospital, according to prosecutors.

Authorities said Bowie first denied being the child’s father. But he later admitted he had sex with the victim and claimed she had “come on to him,” said Assistant District Attorney Haley Broom.

“No child should ever be forced to endure what this young victim experienced,” Broom said.

Authorities investigating the case used DNA test results to prove Bowie was the child’s father. The Gulfport Police Department investigated the case after Child Protective Services notified detectives the teenager had given birth.

Judge Lisa Dodson condemned Bowie and said he had deeply harmed the young girl’s life.

“As a 15-year-old, she became a mother,” Dodson said. “I’m sure that it destroyed her high school years, where she should have been young and carefree.”

Broom said no sentence could reverse the teenager’s trauma. But “we hope this conviction provides the victim and her family some measure of closure and the beginning of healing,” she said.