A former United States diplomat has been sentenced to 15 years in prison for sexually abusing minors while he was working at the US embassy in Manila, Philippines.
Dean Edward Cheves, aged 63, was found guilty of illicit sexual conduct with minors in the country, according to the US Department of Justice.
Cheves used a messaging application installed on his cellphone to chat with a young Filipino, aged 15 to 16, from December 2020 to March 2021. He paid the teenager to create and send sexually explicit images. He also engaged in sexual activities on two separate occasions with another 16-year-old he met online in February 2021.
Furthermore, Cheves filmed the sex acts using his government-issued cellphone on at least one of those occasions.
Child sex abuse materials that Cheves produced were found on the phone after it was seized from his embassy residence in the Philippines. Cheves knew the ages of both minors when he engaged in this illicit conduct.
The US Department of Justice announced the sentencing of Cheves, who served at the US embassy in Manila from 2017 to 2021. Assistant Attorney General Kenneth Polite Jr. of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division and US Attorney Jessica Aber for the Eastern District of Virginia led the case, with support from the Diplomatic Security Service Regional Security Office, Homeland Security Investigations Attache’s Office in the Philippines, and the Philippine National Police.
The case was prosecuted as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in May 2006 by the Justice Department to combat the epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse. The project marshals federal, state, and local resources to locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the internet and identify and rescue victims.
This case sheds light on the importance of protecting minors and the need to hold accountable those who exploit them, especially those in positions of power and trust. The fact that this abuse was committed by a former US diplomat adds to the gravity of the situation and highlights the need for stronger safeguards to prevent such abuses from happening in the future.
