WASHINGTON — A grand jury delivered a staggering 270-count indictment to former Prince George’s County teacher’s aide Deonte Carraway Wednesday.
Of the counts against him, there are 23 counts of sex abuse of a minor, which represent each of Carraway’s 23 victims involved in the case.
Prosecutors say Carraway, 22, sexually abused students at Judge Sylvania Woods Elementary School between August 2015 and February 2016 both on and off school property.
The 116-page indictment outlines that Carraway threatened, pressured, enticed and/or coerced children — 20 boys and three girls who ranged in age from 9 to 13 — instructing them to perform sexual acts on him and on each other while he video taped them on his cellphone.
Carraway then shared the videos, taken on two cellphones, on the Kik app with a group that included the children featured in the recordings, the document said.
A guardian of one of the victim’s discovered a nude photo shared to the victim’s phone and reported Carraway to the principal at Judge Sylvania Woods Elementary in Glenarden, Maryland, and to Prince George’s County police.
“Several children indicated that the defendant told them that they would be participating in a ‘club,’ and that if they wanted to be a part of it, they had to send photos and videos of themselves engaged in sexual acts while alone and while performing sexual acts on other children,” the indictment said.
Some of the videos were taken inside three of his victims’ homes, John Erzen with the state’s attorney’s office said.
“Carraway visited several of these children in their homes, ostensibly after the children’s parents had asked him to baby-sit or tutor the children,” the indictment said.
In addition to abuse at the school and the children’s homes, some children who participated in the Glenarden Municipal Center choir which Carraway directed were also abused, the indictment said.
Along with state charges, a federal grand jury indicted Carraway on 13 counts of produced child pornography in February.
A class-action lawsuit has been filed by families and guardians of some of Carraway’s victims against the Prince George’s County Board of Education, Judge Sylvania Woods Elementary School Principal Michelle Williams and Carraway.
He remains in jail without bond.
