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Former Maryland elementary school aide sentenced to 75 years for child sex abuse Former Maryland elementary school aide sentenced to 75 years for child sex abuse
(about 5 hours later)
A former teaching assistant who admitted that he instructed children to perform sex acts on the campus of a Maryland elementary school and recorded them was sentenced to 75 years in federal prison Monday morning. To federal prosecutors, he is a medically diagnosed pedophile who manipulated children so he could sexually abuse them.
Deonte Carraway, 23, of Glenarden, pleaded guilty in January to 15 counts of sexual exploitation of a minor to produce child pornography. To his defense attorney, he is someone with a child’s mind in a man’s body — a victim of abuse himself.
In U.S. District Court in Greenbelt, Carraway said he was ashamed of his actions. And to the parents of the children Deonte Carraway abused under the guise of helping them with homework or teaching them to sing, he is simply a monster.
Varying portraits of Carraway emerged in court Monday when a federal judge sentenced the former elementary school aide and volunteer to 75 years in prison in a wide-reaching child sex abuse scandal that rattled Prince George’s County.
Carraway, 23, of Glenarden, pleaded guilty in January to 15 counts of sexual exploitation of a minor to produce child pornography.
In his first public statements about the case since his February 2016 arrest, Carraway said he was ashamed of his actions and still loved the parents of the children victimized in the case.
“Kids have my heart …” Carraway said in U.S. District Court in Greenbelt, Md. “When I’m around kids, I feel like a child.”
Carraway, wearing black prison scrubs, said he did not know that what he was doing was wrong even though he sometimes felt guilty after engaging in explicit acts with the children.
“I'm not the monster that people are portraying me to be,” Carraway said.“I'm not the monster that people are portraying me to be,” Carraway said.
The plea in federal court involves 12 children between ages 9 and 13, but the wide-ranging sex abuse investigation involves at least twice as many children, according to police and prosecutors. Carraway’s conviction in federal court involves 12 children between the ages of 9 and 13, but the wide-ranging sex abuse investigation involves at least twice as many children, according to police and prosecutors.
“There's just no way, Mr. Carraway, to restate the magnitude and the enormity of the harm you caused,” U.S. District Court Judge Deborah K. Chasanow said before imposing the sentence. “You knew it was wrong in some sense and yet you persisted.”
Carraway also faces local charges in Prince George’s County Circuit Court, where a grand jury indicted him on 270 counts of sex abuse and other related charges.Carraway also faces local charges in Prince George’s County Circuit Court, where a grand jury indicted him on 270 counts of sex abuse and other related charges.
All told, police said Carraway abused or recorded at least 23 children performing sex acts in a case that rattled Prince George’s, where Carraway worked at Judge Sylvania W. Woods Elementary School in Glenarden. Carraway worked and volunteered at Judge Sylvania W. Woods Elementary School in Glenarden, where he also created a community choir. In those roles, Carraway interacted often with children and eventually created a group called the AKA Club.
He handed out cellphones to children and told them if they wanted to join the club, they had to send him inappropriate videos or photos of themselves through an anonymous social messaging app, authorities said.
[Child-porn suspect ‘always had six or seven kids around. It’s a little strange.’][Child-porn suspect ‘always had six or seven kids around. It’s a little strange.’]
Carraway handed out cellphones to children and communicated with them through an anonymous social-messaging app, police said. He instructed them to record themselves and each other in instances when he was not there to film them, with some of the abuse occurring in private homes, at a municipal pool, in the Glenarden municipal center and in the band room of the school, police and prosecutors said. “There's just no way, Mr. Carraway, to restate the magnitude and the enormity of the harm you caused,” U.S. District Court Judge Deborah K. Chasanow said before imposing the sentence. “You knew it was wrong in some sense and yet you persisted.”
“Carraway exercised supervisory care and control over his victims through his roles as a Dedicated Assistant [at the elementary school] and choir director by gaining the trust of parents who entrusted their children to Carraway’s care in their residences,” according to his federal plea agreement. Federal prosecutors said Carraway is a medically diagnosed pedophile who could not stop thinking about sex with children.
[For years, Pr. George’s didn’t strengthen school sex-abuse policies] At a time when “children should have been playing on the playground or collecting Pokémon cards,” a “wolf in sheep’s clothing” was indoctrinating them into a club he created to manipulate and abuse them, Assistant U.S. Attorney Kristi N. O’Malley said.
Carraway admitted to using a cellphone to record children performing sex acts on one another or him performing sex acts with them, according to the plea agreement. Carraway took advantage of the children and their parents, offering to walk students to school or help with homework to gain access to them, O’Malley said. When the children would not comply with Carraway’s instructions, he threatened to call 911 or to tell their families about their conduct.
Carraway also admitted to creating a group called the AKA Club and told the children that if they wanted to join, they had to send images of themselves, according to the plea agreement. “Carraway not only robbed these children of their innocence,” O’Malley said, “he robbed these families of their faith in humanity.”
In one incident inside the band room of the elementary school, Carraway is heard on video instructing a boy and girl on video to perform explicit acts, federal prosecutors said. In another incident, prosecutors said, Carraway took advantage of a special-needs child.In one incident inside the band room of the elementary school, Carraway is heard on video instructing a boy and girl on video to perform explicit acts, federal prosecutors said. In another incident, prosecutors said, Carraway took advantage of a special-needs child.
[For years, Pr. George’s didn’t strengthen school sex-abuse policies]
Carraway’s federal public defender John Chamble said his client has an IQ of 60 and was abused himself in an educational setting as a child. Chamble said Carraway became part of a cycle of abuse in which victims go on to victimize others.
Chamble likened Carraway to the character of Lennie in the John Steinbeck novel “Of Mice and Men.”
“He’s done some monstrous things, but he is not a monster,” Chamble said. “He’s trapped. He’s confused.”
Police discovered the abuse after an uncle checking a student’s cellphone discovered inappropriate photos and contacted authorities.Police discovered the abuse after an uncle checking a student’s cellphone discovered inappropriate photos and contacted authorities.
[Former Prince George’s school volunteer indicted on 270 counts in child porn case][Former Prince George’s school volunteer indicted on 270 counts in child porn case]
The arrest of Carraway in February 2016 enraged the community at Judge Sylvania W. Woods, with parents questioning how Carraway was allowed to be unsupervised with the children long enough to film them on campus during the school day. The school system launched a task force after his arrest to review how it handles reports of child sex abuse. The task force recommended sweeping changes to the school system’s policies to keep students safer. The arrest of Carraway in February 2016 enraged the school community at Sylvania Woods, with parents questioning how Carraway was allowed to be unsupervised with the children long enough to film them on campus during the school day. The school system launched a task force after his arrest to review how it handles reports of child sex abuse and recommended sweeping changes to keep students safer.
Carraway’s trial in Prince George’s County Circuit Court is pending, as are at least nine civil suits and one class-action lawsuit filed by families of the children involved against Carraway, the school system and the city of Glenarden. “We’ve been taking serious steps to put new safeguards in place to protect children even from people who have no prior criminal history,” said John White, a spokesman for Prince George’s County Public Schools.
Carraway’s trial in Prince George’s County Circuit Court is pending, as are at least nine civil suits and one class-action lawsuit filed by families of the affected children against Carraway, the school system and the city of Glenarden.
“The Court issued an appropriately strong sentence today,” said Timothy F. Maloney, an attorney representing several of the families suing Carraway and the school system. “Deonte Carraway will spend the rest of his life in federal prison. But of course no sentence can ever make up for the harm to these children and their families.”
A few parents of the children who were abused attended the hearing, but none addressed the court publicly.
After the hearing, a great-grandfather of one of the children said Carraway should have gotten 100 years in prison.
The great-grandfather is not being named to protect the identity of the child. The Washington Post does not usually identify individuals in sexual assaults without their agreement.
“He ruined their lives,” said the great-grandfather. “He shouldn’t be allowed to be out here.”
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