Man accused of holding Ballantyne teen captive a year is released on bond

The Georgia man accused of holding a south Charlotte teenage girl captive for a year has been released on bond after nine months in jail, Georgia media outlets report.

Michael Wysolovski was arrested in June in Duluth, Georgia, near Atlanta, and is accused of holding Hailey Burns, 17, in his Georgia home, where he controlled her eating and assaulted her, investigators said.

Judge R. Timothy Hamil set the bond at $75,000 on Monday after a hearing last Friday that lasted more than an hour, reports the Atlanta Journal Constitution. Wysolovski, 32, faces charges of rape, sodomy, interstate interference of custody, cruelty to children and false imprisonment.

The teen, her parents and about 10 other supporters were present at Friday’s hearing in Gwinnett, but none testified, reported TV station WHIO.

Her father, Anthony Burns, posted news of the bond hearing on his Facebook page.

“I would like to go on record and say that I believe in my daughter and that she is a hero to many others that have been hurt by this predator,” he wrote on Facebook. “I pray that others are not hurt by him in any way prior to trial. Further I am sickened by the amount of support that was shown this predator at this proceeding. Their were over 40 supporters present (for Wysolovski). I will leave this in God’s knowing hands until we can attain justice for my daughter.”

The teen had been missing from her Charlotte home for more than a year when the FBI arrested Wysolovski in June. A warrant issued for his arrest said he monitored what the girl ate, punished her when she went over her calorie limit and forced her to perform sex acts against her will. In the Duluth home, the girl was kept in a room of the house by two large pet gates that went from the floor to the ceiling, reported the Atlanta Journal Constitution.

Her father told media outlets she had been missing for 394 days when the arrest was made.

Wysolovski met the girl in a chatroom through a website called MyProAna.com, a forum for people struggling with anorexia, reported WHIO.

While out on bond, he will wear a GPS monitoring ankle bracelet and is ordered not have any contact with the girl and her family, the station reported.

The FBI was offering a $15,000 for information leading to Burns’ whereabouts, and media outlets reported the tipster came from an unlikely place: Romania. The girl’s mother, Shaunna Burns, told media outlets that her daughter met a Romanian woman online and told her she was missing. The teen sent the stranger a picture from the window, her mother told Charlotte TV station WSOC.

This story was originally published February 28, 2018 at 9:03 AM with the headline "Man accused of holding Ballantyne teen captive a year is released on bond."