Man Pleads Guilty to Exploiting Minor

MUSKOGEE, OK—The United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Oklahoma announced today that Donald Laquinn West, III, age 38, of Talihina, Oklahoma, pled guilty to sexual exploitation of a minor child, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 2251(a).

The charge arose from an investigation by the Choctaw Tribal Police, the Oklahoma Department of Human Services, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The defendant was indicted in November 2012.

The indictment alleged that on or about a date uncertain to the grand jury between January 22, 2010 and January 22, 2011, in Latimer County, within the Eastern District of Oklahoma, the defendant did, employ, use, induce, entice, and coerce a minor child under the age of 18 to engage in sexually explicit conduct, specifically, the lascivious exhibition of the genitals and pubic area of said minor child for the purpose of producing a visual depiction of such conduct, which such visual depiction was produced using materials that had been mailed, shipped, and transported in interstate and foreign commerce.

The Honorable Kimberly E. West, Magistrate Judge in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Oklahoma, in Muskogee, accepted the defendant’s guilty plea and ordered the completion of a presentence report. Sentencing will be scheduled following its completion.

The statutory range of punishment is not less than 15 years or more than 30 years’ imprisonment and/or up to a $250,000 fine and not less than five years nor more than life of supervised release.

Assistant United States Attorney Dean Burris represented the United States.