A federal judge sentenced a Crystal Lake man to 19 years in prison for coercing a child and enticing her to produce sexually explicit images and videos for him, prosecutors said.
Domenique Dequon Hines, 25, of Crystal Lake, was sentenced by U.S. Senior District Court Judge William Young to 19 years in prison and five years of supervised release.
Hines pleaded guilty to one count of coercion and enticement of a minor in September.
United States Attorney Rachael S. Rollins said Hines had been released from serving a sentence in Illinois in 2020 for possessing child pornography.
Six weeks later, Hines, a registered sex offender, met a 14-year-old Massachusetts girl on Instagram in October 2020.
“Less than two months after being released from prison for a child pornography offense, Mr. Hines went right back to exploiting and sexualizing children. He used social media to target, coerce and threaten a 14-year-old victim for his own sexual gratification,” Rollins said.
Hines and the victim exchanged phone numbers and profile pictures and began communicating through iMessage and other forms of online communication for approximately 10 days.
On the first day of communications, Hines confirmed with the victim that she was 14 years old and he informed the victim that he was 23 years old, prosecutors said.
After confirming her age, Hines enticed and coerced the victim to take and send him sexually explicit images and videos of herself, prosecutors said.
Hines asked that the victim call him “daddy” and explained that if her parents ever try to take her phone, she should delete all of their text messages, prosecutors said.
Hines was sentenced earlier this week.
“Domenique Dequon Hines is a calculating and manipulative predator who targeted, exploited, and harmed a vulnerable child for life. No sentence for this man will wipe away the scars he left on his 14-year-old victim, and our thoughts are with both her and her family today,” said Joseph R. Bonavolonta, Special Agent in Charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigations Boston Division.
“It is the FBI’s sincere hope that his punishment—almost two decades behind bars—will deter others from engaging in this repulsive, criminal conduct,” Bonavolonta said.
Rollins called Hines a “danger to our children and accordingly, he will be removed from our community for nearly two decades.”
The case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse.
The program was launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice.