NEW BERN - United States Attorney Robert J. Higdon, Jr., announced that United States District Judge Louise W. Flanagan committed Jonah james hawkins, 28, to the custody of the Attorney General as a sexually dangerous person under the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006.
Hawkins has a history of sexually molesting young girls and violating the terms of his probation. When he was 14, HAWKINS molested his three-year-old cousin. When he was 15, he molested the five-year-old daughter of one of his father’s friends. At age 16, he molested his seven-year-old half-sister and a two-year-old cousin he was babysitting. He molested this young cousin again when he was 17, and did so approximately 30 times over a two-month period. During the time he was molesting his young cousin, HAWKINS pled with the girl’s mother to let him take custody of her.
As a result of sexually abusing his young cousin, HAWKINS was convicted of Second Degree Criminal Sexual Conduct with a Victim under 13 in Minnesota, as well as Contributing to the Deprivation of a Minor in North Dakota. HAWKINS was sentenced to a ten-year term of probation, which he subsequently violated on two occasions by forming relationships with female children under the age of 12. HAWKINS served prison time for violating his probation, and was again was released to the community on probation.
In June 2017, at age 26, HAWKINS absconded from his supervision in Minnesota and traveled to Texas. HAWKINS was in Texas using an alias, Charlie Ciancanelli, for approximately 42 days prior to his arrest by the United States Marshals Service, at which time he was found holding a 2-year-old female child. HAWKINS admitted at trial he was sexually attracted to the two-year-old, had fantasized about sexually abusing her, and had taken photographs of her on his cell phone. He also admitted at trial that he had online chats with other sex offenders about the sexual acts he wanted to perform on the child. During this time, HAWKINS also contacted multiple young female children on social networking websites and solicited a naked photograph from one of them.
HAWKINS was federally prosecuted in the Southern District of Texas for Failure to Register as a Sex Offender for his conduct in Texas. He was sentenced to a 24-month term of imprisonment and 10-years’ supervised release.
At trial, HAWKINS admitted that while he has been incarcerated he has repeatedly asked his family to send him pictures of his time in Texas, including with the young girl he fantasized about sexually abusing.
HAWKINS was scheduled for release from federal prison on May 1, 2019, but the United States certified him as a sexually dangerous person under the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006. Congress passed this Act in order to provide another powerful legal mechanism for protecting the public from some of the most dangerous sexual offenders. The Act allows the United States to seek civil commitment of sexually dangerous persons who, because of a serious mental illness, abnormality, or disorder, would have serious difficulty refraining from sexually violent conduct or child molestation.
The United States believed that HAwkins met every element of that definition. The Court agreed. On May 30, 2019, after a bench trial, Judge Flanagan committed HAWKINS to the custody of the Attorney General as a sexually dangerous person. In doing so, Judge Flanagan explained that HAWKINS’ continued attempts to secure friendship and alone-time with young prepubescent females demonstrates that HAWKINS currently has limited ability to refrain from acting on his sexual attraction to young girls, despite years of sex offender therapy and the risk of violating probation. Judge Flanagan noted that HAWKINS is not intrinsically motivated to participate in sex offender treatment, a factor that weighs in favor of a finding that HAWKINS lacks volitional control as it relates to his offending.
The United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of North Carolina litigates all Adam Walsh Act cases for the entire country. All sexually dangerous persons who are committed to federal custody are housed in a federal facility in that district, where intensive, residential treatment is offered to them. HAWKINS is the eighty-third sexually dangerous person committed under the Adam Walsh Act.
Special Assistant United States Attorneys Genna Petre and Michael Bredenberg represented the government in this case.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the United States Attorneys
