57-Year-Old Pedophile Committed to Federal Custody as a Sexually Dangerous Person

NEW BERN – United States Attorney Robert J. Higdon, Jr., announced that United States District Judge Louise W. Flanagan committed CHARLES TODD STOKES, 57, to the custody of the Attorney General as a sexually dangerous person under the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006.

STOKES, a former elementary school teacher, has a history of sexually molesting prepubescent and post-pubescent boys in the United States and Thailand.  Florida records alleged that between 1994 and 1998, STOKES molested six students or other minors.  STOKES denied the allegations and argued that the allegations were “unsubstantiated.”  Between 1995 and 1997, STOKES, then in his 30s, engaged in sexual behavior “several times” with the 13 to 15-year-old son of a divorced woman he dated and whose family he befriended prior to the parents’ divorce.   The boy’s father filed a complaint with state officials alleging STOKES molested his son, which STOKES denied.  The Florida state case was dismissed.  STOKES admitted at the civil commitment hearing that when questioned by Florida law enforcement authorities and state education officials after the complaint was filed he denied molesting the boy because he deemed it in his “best interest” to do so.

Florida law enforcement officials arrested STOKES in August 1998 and charged him with two counts of lewd and lascivious assault on a child.  The allegations involved STOKES inappropriately touching two nine-year-old boys.  STOKES denied the allegations but, in February 2000, pled no contest to simple battery and was sentenced to one year probation.  STOKES also surrendered his teacher’s license and teaching certificate.

One month into his probationary period, STOKES applied for permission to resume teaching in Thailand and his request was granted.  According to STOKES, he chose to teach in Thailand, in part, because of its “looser sexual mores.”  STOKES taught in Thailand between 2000 and 2006.  In 2002, STOKES was fired from a school in Thailand after his coworkers reported that he encouraged a young boy to hug and kiss him and after inappropriately touching a young boy in a pool.  His coworkers also reported that STOKES was living with a 15 year-old male prostitute.  STOKES was not charged with a crime and denied living full-time with a 15-year-old male prostitute but admitted a 15-year-old male prostitute occiasionally lived with him during that period. 

Based on the allegations, law enforcement officials in the United States and Thailand began investigating STOKES.  A search warrant was executed at STOKES’ residence in October 2003 and numerous items were recovered, including printed photographs of clothed young children, a pair of children’s swimming trunks, a video camera, a video cassette tape, and a digital camera.  The digitial camera contained a photograph of a Thai boy, who appeared approximately 10 to 13 years old, lying naked on a bed.  STOKES admitted at the hearing that he engaged in sex with the boy the night before the search warrant was executed. 

In 2006, law enforcement authorities arrested STOKES in Thailand on unspecified criminal charges and extradited STOKES to the United States approximately one year later.  The United States Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Illinois initially charged STOKES with three counts of child trafficking but later indicted STOKES on one count of traveling in interstate and foreign commerce for the purpose of engaging in a sexual act with a person under age 18.  STOKES pled not guilty and went to trial on the charge.

Two of STOKES’ victims from Thailand testified at the criminal trial in Illinois.   The victims testified that they were 11 years old when STOKES invited them to his home where they would play video games. They further testified that STOKES molested them and took nude photographs of them simulating sexual intercourse.  A federal investigator also testified at the criminal trial that she recovered approximately 6,000 images from the electronic devices seized during the execution of the 2003 search warrant.  According to the investigator, some of the images depicted prepubescent boys engaged in sexual behavior.  Other images depicted STOKES engaging in sex acts with prepubescent or pubescent boys.  The investigator estimated that STOKES had molested 60 minors of which 30 were approximately less than 12 years old with the youngest victim appearing to be 7 years old.  The jury found STOKES guilty of all counts and the federal judge in Illinois sentenced STOKES to 180 months’ imprisonment, the maximum under law. 

During the civil commitment hearing here in Eastern North Carolina, STOKES admitted he molested the victims of the crimes for which he received his federal conviction.  STOKES testified, however, that he believed the victims were both 15 years old, the legal age of sexual consent in Thailand.   STOKES denied that any of the males depicted in the 6,000 photographs recovered from the various electronic devices were pre-pubescent and that only 12 of the male prostitutes he sought after were under 18 years old.

STOKES was scheduled for release from federal prison on July 19, 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 STOKES met every element of that definition.  The Court agreed.  On August 5, 2019, after a hearing, the Court committed STOKES to the custody of the Attorney General as a sexually dangerous person. 

The United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of North Carolina litigates Adam Walsh Act cases nationwide.  All sexually dangerous persons who are committed to federal custody are housed in a federal facility in the Eastern District of North Carolina, where intensive, residential treatment is offered to them.  STOKES is the eighty-fourth sexually dangerous person committed under the Adam Walsh Act.     

Assistant United States Attorney Michael G. James represented the government in this case.