Washington, DC - A Manassas man was sentenced yesterday to 20 years in prison for paying women to sexually abuse children in the Philippines via a web camera while he directed and produced numerous images of the abuse, announced Assistant Attorney General Brian A. Benczkowski of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, U.S. Attorney G. Zachary Terwilliger for the Eastern District of Virginia, and Special Agent in Charge Patrick J. Lechleitner of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Washington, D.C., after sentencing by U.S. District Judge Liam O’Grady.
On April 9, Dwayne Stinson, 53, a communications technician, pleaded guilty to production of child pornography. According to court documents, from at least October 2011 until February 2012, Stinson used an electronic payment service to pay women in the Philippines he was chatting with to sexually abuse children while he directed the abuse. He admitted that some of the children were as young as six or seven years old. The defendant contemporaneously produced numerous screenshot images of the abuse and stored them on his computer for years. In addition to his prison sentence, Stinson was also sentenced to 10 years of supervised release.
HSI investigated the case with assistance from the Prince William County Police Department and Northern Virginia/District of Columbia Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force. Trial Attorney James E. Burke IV of the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS) and Assistant U.S. Attorney Whitney Russell of the Eastern District of Virginia are prosecuting the case.
This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse. Led by U.S. Attorneys’ Offices and CEOS, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state and local resources to better locate, apprehend and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the Internet, as well as to identify and rescue victims.
