WASHINGTON — A former school Maryland school volunteer who pleaded guilty to abusing nearly two dozen children in a case that stunned the Prince George’s County school system was sentenced Thursday to 100 years in prison.
Deonte Carraway, 23, a former elementary teacher’s aide at Judge Sylvania Woods Elementary School, pleaded guilty to 23 counts of sex abuse and child pornography charges stemming from the abuse of children as young as nine and 10 years old.
Some of the abuse took place on school grounds and much of it was recorded via cellphone and social media apps, according to prosecutors. Carraway had been indicted last summer on a total of 270 state counts of child sex abuse and other charges.
At a sentencing hearing Thursday in the Prince George’s Courthouse in Upper Marlboro, Maryland, Carraway was sentenced to a total of 395 years, with all but 100 years of that sentence suspended.
Many of the families of the children that Carraway pleaded guilty to abusing were in the courtroom for his sentencing, Prince George’s County State’s Attorney Angela Alsobrooks said. In a victim-impact statement, one mother told the court her son continues to wake up nearly every night with nightmares and continues to receive therapy related to his abuse.
Referring to Carraway’s sentence on the state charges, Alsobrooks said: “Those 100 years are impossible really to measure the pain that this case has caused the families in this case.”
At the hearing, Carraway apologized, saying, “I wish I could go back and stop myself from doing it, but that’s not how life works.”
Last month, Carraway was sentenced to 75 years in federal prison after pleading guilty to more than a dozen federal sexual exploitation and child pornography charges. The 100-year sentence will run concurrent to the federal sentence.
Prosecutors said Carraway directed young students to engage in sexual activity with each other and himself and recorded some of the sexual acts on cellphones, some of which took place at Judge Sylvania Woods Elementary School in Glenarden, Maryland.
Carraway was arrested in February 2016 after a family member discovered nude images on one of the victim’s cellphone
Between the local and federal cases, prosecutors believe Carraway is responsible for abusing at least 23 children dating back to 2015.
When Carraway’s federal sentence was handed, the judge said Carraway would serve his sentence at a federal facility for sex offender treatment. There is no parole in the federal system, but prisoners can earn up to 15 percent off their sentence for good behavior.
The Carraway case outraged parents and led to the creation of a task force that made more than 60 recommendations for improving student safety.
At the news conference after the sentence on the state charges, Alsobrooks called the Carraway case “a miserable failure” for children in the Prince George’s County school system and in the community.
WTOP’s Megan Cloherty and Patrick Roth contributed to this report.
