Man Gets 19 Years In Federal Prison For Targeting Girl On Instagram

CRYSTAL LAKE, IL — A 25-year-old Crystal Lake man has been sentenced to 19 years in federal prison for coercing and enticing a minor to produce sexually explicit images and videos.

Domenique Dequon Hines, 25, of Crystal Lake, was sentenced by U.S. Senior District Court Judge William G. Young last week to the prison time and to five years of supervised release. In September, Hines pleaded guilty to one count of coercion and enticement of a minor.

In October 2020, about six weeks after he was released from serving prison time in Illinois for a child pornography offense, Hines met a 14-year-old child from Massachusetts on Instagram. Hines and the victim exchanged phone numbers and profile pictures and began communicating online via iMessage and other forms of internet communication for about 10 days, according to a news release from the United States Attorney's Office.

On the first day of communications, Hines confirmed with the girl that she was 14 years old and he told her he is 23 years old. After confirming her age, Hines persuaded, induced, enticed and coerced the victim to take and send him sexually explicit images and videos of herself, according to prosecutors.

Hines requested 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. Hines was previously convicted of a child pornography offense in the state of Illinois.

“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.

This case was filed in federal court 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, according to a news release.