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A Pleasanton man has been convicted of online enticement and international sexual abuse of a 14-year-old girl in England he reportedly met online while playing Clash of Clans four years ago.
The guilty verdict against David John Telles Jr., now 42 years old, was handed down by a federal jury on Monday, according to the United States Attorney’s Office. His sentencing hearing is set for Feb. 26.
According to the attorney’s office, evidence at Telles’ trial showed that he used the internet to entice and induce a child to engage in sexual activity, prior to traveling to England.
“Specifically, Telles used an online messaging application to groom the 14-year-old victim for weeks before he traveled to England with the intent to sexually abuse her in June of 2014,” the attorney’s office said in a statement Thursday. “After arriving in England, Telles took the victim to two different hotels where he sexually abused her over the course of two days.”
The BBC reported in 2014 that the two met online via the online game Clash of Clans, and that he picked up the Cornish teenager in the middle of the night, after she had climbed out of her bedroom window, bringing clothes and her passport.
English police officers from the Devon and Cornwall Constabulary caught Telles and rescued the girl, according to the BBC and U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Two years later, on Oct. 13, 2016 a federal grand jury returned an indictment charging Telles with online enticement of a minor, traveling with intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct in foreign places and engaging in such conduct, according to the attorney’s office. Telles was subsequently deported from the United Kingdom, and on Oct. 20, 2016, Homeland Security Investigations arrested him at San Francisco International Airport.
After his conviction this week, Telles is being held in the custody of the U.S. Marshal. He faces a minimum 10-year term of imprisonment, and a maximum of life imprisonment and a fine of $250,000, plus restitution.
