OAKLAND– D’mar Dwain Jennings Conway pleaded guilty today to sexual exploitation of a child, announced United States Attorney Brian J. Stretch and Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Special Agent in Charge Ryan L. Spradlin. The guilty plea follows the filing of a complaint and indictment in the spring of 2016.
According to his plea agreement, Conway, 29, of Oakland, admitted that on at least one occasion between 2007 and 2010, he induced a victim, for whom he was a caregiver, to engage in a sex act. Conway further admitted that the victim was under12 years old and that he induced the child to engage in sex acts so that Conway could produce visual depictions of the conduct. Also in the plea agreement, Conway acknowledged that law enforcement found and removed from his home a digital memory card containing numerous images depicting Conway engaging in different sexual acts with a child who was approximately three to six years old. Conway admitted that the images of the sexual abuse of the child were taken inside his residence.
A federal grand jury indicted Conway on June 16, 2016, charging him with one count of sexual exploitation of children, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 2251(a) and (e); and one count of possession and access with intent to view child pornography, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 2252(a) and (b). Pursuant to the plea agreement, Conway pleaded guilty to the first charge.
The Honorable Jeffrey S. White, U.S. District Judge, accepted Conway’s guilty plea and scheduled a sentencing hearing for June 6, 2017, at 1:00 pm. The maximum statutory sentence for violating 18 U.S.C. § 2251 is a 30-year prison term, and the minimum mandatory sentence for that crime is a 15-year prison term. Additional fines, victim restitution, and a term of supervised release also may be imposed by Judge White. However, any sentence following conviction would be imposed by the court only after consideration of the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and the federal statute governing the imposition of a sentence, 18 U.S.C. § 3553.
Assistant U.S. Attorneys Christina McCall and Erin Cornell are prosecuting the case with the assistance of Vanessa Quant and Noble Hughes. The prosecution is the result of an investigation by HSI.
If members of the public have any information relevant to this investigation or to suspected child predators or suspicious activity, they should contact HSI through the toll-free Tip Line at 1-866-DHS-2-ICE or by completing the online tip form at https://www.ice.gov/webform/hsi-tip-form. Both are staffed around the clock by investigators. Suspected child sexual exploitation or missing children may also be reported to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, an Operation Predator partner, via its toll-free 24-hour hotline, 1-800-THE-LOST.