A former school aide in Prince George's County, Maryland, pleaded guilty Monday to sexually abusing 12 children inside his school.
Deonte Carraway entered guilty pleas to 15 federal charges of sexual exploitation of a minor to produce child pornography. The plea came during a proceeding at the U.S. District Courthouse in Greenbelt.
He now faces between 60 and 100 years in prison.
Carraway is 22 and was an aide at Judge Sylvania Woods Elementary School in Glenarden. His case, which rocked the elementary school and wider Prince George's communities, involved minors ranging in age from 9 to 13 years old.
Carraway admitted in his plea agreement that he engaged in sex acts with the children, using a cell phone to record the acts. He also told the children to perform sex acts with each other, and gave them phones to record the acts.
He had founded a club at school, Carraway admitted in the plea agreement; to join in, children had to send him sexually explicit images. In court, prosecutors said Carraway video chatted with one 12 year old, telling the victim to perform inappropriate behaviors.
He also went into some children's homes, prosecutors said in court.
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Carraway was arrested in February of 2016 after the uncle of a 9-year-old boy saw a nude image on the child's phone, police said. Investigators then linked the aide to other victims in the case.
Last year, Carraway was also indicted in Prince George’s County Court on 270 local criminal charges of sex abuse of a minor, sex offenses and child pornography. He pleaded not guilty.
His lawyers argued that the court should suppress some of the defendant's statements because they may have been "involuntary." His attorneys said Carraway "exhibited significant cognitive deficits, with a full scale IQ of 63, which placed his overall intellectual functioning in the deficient range."
