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Waldorf resident Charles Clark, 67, was sentenced on April 3 for sexually abusing a child who was entrusted to his care hundreds of times over the course of several years.
According to court documents, beginning in June 2017, Clark targeted a child under the age of 17, subjecting the girl to repeated rape and sexual abuse for five years.
Despite being a “father-figure” to this girl, and despite having helped raise the victim from early childhood, Clark sexually abused the girl between 170 and 200 times, prosecutors said.
The sexual abuse occurred both at the victim’s home as well as Clark’s residence in Maryland.
While the abuse was ongoing, prosecutors say that Clark and the girl would communicate online through social meedia, and beginning in 2020, he ordered her to send him sexually explicit photos, which she did at least twice.
The girl eventually alerted her mother to the abuse, who immediately went to the police.
During the subsequent investigation, police took over the girl's Instagram account and began talking to Clark, who openly acknowledged that he and the girl had been together for five years and that she “gave (him) the most precious thing a woman can give a man” referencing her virginity at the age of 13.
Clark was arrested on April 2, 2021 and in custody since.
Clark pleaded guilty in DC in October 2022 to a federal count of coercion and enticement of a minor, for which he got life in prison.
In a related case, in March last year, Clark pleaded guilty in Charles County to to sexual abuse of a minor/continuing conduct, and sexual abuse of a minor, where he was sentenced to 45 years.
In addition to a lifetime in prison, a judge also ordered that Clark register as a sex offender.
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