BALTIMORE — 42-year-old Antonio Wright, of Baltimore, was sentenced to 25 years in federal prison, followed by lifetime supervised release, for coercing and enticing a minor to engage in sexually explicit conduct and for two counts of production of child pornography.
The judge also ordered that, upon his release, Wright will be required to register as a sex offender in the places where he lives, works and attends school.
Wright admitted that he used an online social network to induce the victim, Jane Doe, to engage in sexual explicit conduct and to produce photos of that conduct. According to his plea agreement, Wright has known the victim since 2009, when she was four years old. He lived with her family sporadically until the Spring of 2017.
Evidence showed that Wright began sexually abusing the victim when she was 11 years old.
Beginning in, at least, August 2017, Wright and Jane Doe, who was living with a foster family in Baltimore, began communicating by text messages, audio messages and photos through an online social media network. In the messages, which frequently included Wright's declarations of love for her, he also told Jane Doe that they should eventually get married.
At the time, Jane Doe was about 13 years old.
Wright instructed the victim not to tell others that she had "an older man for a boyfriend" and that, if she did, he would get in trouble.
On January 4, 2018, Wright spent time with Jane Doe at his home when Baltimore City schools were closed due to snow. That afternoon, Jane Doe's foster mother noticed that she didn't come home when she was supposed to. When she was unable to locate Jane Doe, she found the tablet that she'd been using to communicate with Wright and observed the sexually explicit chats and photos.
After Wright brought Jane Doe home, her foster mother filed a report with the Maryland Department of Human Services, who referred the case to Child Protective Services. As part of the investigation, Jane Doe's tablet and social media accounts were searched and sexually explicit photos, texts, messages and voice messages were found.
According to evidence presented at Tuesday's hearing, Wright sexually abused the victim from the time she was 11 years old until January 4, 2018. Wright admitted to federal investigators that he had engaged in sexually explicit conversations with the victim and that he had asked her to send him sexually explicit images of herself, which she did. Wright also admitted that he sent her sexually explicit images of himself.
In addition to what's above, there was evidence presented that showed that the victim disclosed to authorities that Wright sexually molested her at his house on January 4, 2018. He ended up admitting to sexually abusing the victim on that day.
