After entering a guilty plea, former Loudoun County sheriff’s deputy Dustin Ryan Amos was found guilty on one count of using a communications system to solicit a minor, the Virginia Attorney General’s Office announced Thursday.
At Loudoun County Circuit Court, Attorney General Jason Miyares said Judge James Fisher had accepted Amos’ guilty plea and that sentencing would take place June 13.
“Sexual predators who victimize children must be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. I am grateful that law enforcement was able to catch this individual and my office was able to successfully prosecute before he physically acted on his despicable behavior,” Miyares said.
Police arrested 33-year-old Amos of Herndon on Dec. 17, 2021, after authorities in Minnesota, who had first engaged Amos online, notified the Virginia Attorney General’s Office.
Before the plea was entered, evidence in court showed that Amos had used an app called Whisper to “engage in sexually charged conversations” with an undercover detective, whom he believed was a 15-year-old girl, according to a news release from the Attorney General’s Office.
During this time, Amos was still employed by Loudoun County as a sheriff’s deputy. Amos had worked in the Loudoun County Adult Detention Center since 2013.
As a part of his guilty plea, Amos admitted he continued to discuss sexual acts with the girl, even after she told him she was only 15 years old. In their exchanges, he had also sent her photos of himself in his deputy’s uniform, the release stated.
The case against Amos was pursued by Virginia State Police as part of the Northern Virginia-D.C. Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force. The investigation also was a collaboration with the Minnesota Human Trafficking Task Force, which were the first to chat with Amos online.
The charges against Amos, which are Class 5 felonies, carry statutory maximum sentences of between 30 year and 40 years.
After completing his prison sentence, Amos will be required to register as a sex offender in the National Sex Offender Database.
WTOP’s Neal Augenstein contributed to this report.
