South Georgia Man Sentenced to 27 Years in Prison for Enticement of a Minor

ALBANY, Ga. –A Valdosta, Georgia, resident was sentenced to serve 27 years in federal prison for coercing and enticing a 13-year-old child to a hotel room, where he gave her alcohol and sexually abused her.

Dewayne Howell, 50, was sentenced to serve 324 months in prison to be followed by 12 years of supervised release and also ordered to pay $4,050 in restitution to Minor Victim 1 (MV1) by U.S. District Judge W. Louis Sands on July 11. In addition, Howell will have to register as a child sex offender upon release from prison. Howell was found guilty by a federal jury of one count of coercion and enticement of a minor on Feb. 6, 2024. There is no parole in the federal system.

“Child predators who target the most vulnerable members of our society will face severe punishment in federal court,” said U.S. Attorney Peter D. Leary. “I want to thank the local law enforcement teams in the Valdosta community for helping us hold this defendant accountable for his crime.”

According to court documents and evidence presented at trial, Dewayne Howell and his brother, Laronce Howell, picked up 13-year-old MV1 and her 16-year-old sister near their house on Oct. 2, 2020. They traveled to a liquor store, where Dewayne Howell purchased alcohol, and then to a hotel in Valdosta, where he rented a hotel room. Dewayne Howell took MV1 alone to the hotel room, where he sexually abused her. Surveillance video from the hotel showed that Dewayne Howell then let Laronce Howell and MV1’s sister into the room. The adult men gave the children alcohol before eventually bringing them back home.

This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse, launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice. Led by the U.S. Attorneys’ Offices and the DOJ’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state and local resources to locate, apprehend and prosecute individuals who exploit children, as well as identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.projectsafechildhood.gov.

The case was investigated by the Valdosta Police Department and the Lowndes County Sheriff’s Office.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Elizabeth Howard prosecuted the case for the Government.