A former US State Department worker was sentenced for 15 years in jail for illicit sexual conduct with minors within the Philippines, based on a press launch posted on the US Department of Justice web site.
The 63-year-old Dean Edward Cheves served within the nation on the US Embassy from 2017 to 2021.
The US Justice Department stated that from December 2020 to March 2021, the previous worker “used a messaging application installed on his cell phone to chat with a 15- to 16-year-old Philippine minor, whom he paid to create and send to him sexually explicit images of the minor.”
In February 2021, he allegedly engaged in “sex acts on two separate occasions with another 16-year-old Philippine minor, whom he met online.”
The investigation, based on the press launch posted on March 17, 2023, was performed by the US Department of State’s Diplomatic Security Service (DSS) Office of Special Investigations with help from the DSS Regional Security Office, Homeland Security Investigations Attaché’s Office within the Philippines, and the Philippine National Police (PNP).
The case was prosecuted by trial Attorney Gwendelynn Bills of the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section and Assistant US Attorneys Lauren Pomerantz Halper and Zoe Bedell for the Eastern District of Virginia.
According to the identical press launch, Cheves additionally used a government-issued cellphone to movie the intercourse acts on no less than a type of events and that “sex abuse material” was discovered on the cellphone.
Cheves, the press launch added, “knew the ages of both minors at the time he engaged in the conduct.”
The announcement was made by Assistant Attorney General Kenneth A. Polite, Jr. of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division and US Attorney Jessica D. Aber for the Eastern District of Virginia.
The stated case is a part of the US initiative to fight baby sexual exploitation and abuse by the Project Safe Childhood, which was launched in May 2006 by the US Department of Justice.
The mission is spearheaded by the US Attorneys’ Offices and the Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and native sources to higher find, apprehend, and prosecute people who exploit kids by way of the web, to establish and rescue victims. — BAP, GMA Integrated News
Source: www.gmanetwork.com
