Sex Offender Pleads Guilty to Child Porn Charges

SILVER SPRING, MD — A Silver Spring sex offender pleaded guilty Friday to production of child pornography by photographing children he befriended at church and by coercing youths he met through online video gaming to produce and share sexually explicit images with him. Clarence Henry Andrews, 28, said in his plea agreement that in March 2015 he promised to provide the victim with the Advanced Warfare video game in exchange for sexually explicit images and videos of the victim.

He communicated with the victim, an 11-year-old boy living in Georgia, via a video game system, Skype, FaceTime, text messages, and telephone. During their communications, Andrews at times invoked the Bible in order to persuade the victim to produce and share sexually explicit images and videos. Andrews admitted that over an estimated two-year period he attempted to coerce at least eight other victims age 16 and younger to produce images and videos of sexually explicit conduct.

In addition, Andrews said in his plea that between April 2013 and October 2014, he befriended an Olney family through church, that included an eight-to-nine-year-old girl and a seven-to-eight-year-old boy. Andrews visited the family’s home several times and on one occasion Andrews took the girl to a downstairs bathroom in the house and gave her cash to pull down her pants, then touched and photographed the child’s buttocks. On other occasions while visiting the family Andrews took the boy to the downstairs bathroom, engaged in sexually explicit conduct and photographed the boy’s buttocks.

As part of his federal plea agreement, Andrews has agreed to plead guilty to this conduct in a Montgomery County Circuit Court case. Also as part of his plea agreement, Andrews will be required to continue to register as a sex offender.

Andrews and prosecutors have agreed that if the court accepts the plea agreement, he will be sentenced to between 20 and 30 years in prison, followed by lifetime supervised release. Sentencing for Andrews is scheduled for May 12.

According to the U.S. Attorney's office, Andrews is a registered sex offender as a result of a 2010 conviction in Prince George’s County Circuit Court for a fourth-degree sex offense and second-degree assault, in connection with his abuse of a nine-year-old boy in the bathroom of a Laurel church.