A former Hewitt, Texas man whose son told police his father was sexually abusing two brothers while videoing the assaults was sentenced to 40 years in prison Thursday.
Judge Susan Kelly of Waco’s 54th State District Court sentenced 61-year-old Willie Ross Davis Jr. to 40 years in prison after his guilty plea to two counts of trafficking of persons.
Davis also pleaded guilty Thursday to four counts of promotion of child pornography and the judge sentenced him to 20 years in prison on each of those counts.
Davis, who the two brothers called “Paw Paw,” will serve the prison terms concurrently. He must serve at least 20 years in prison before he can seek parole.
Prosecutor Sydney Tuggle reduced two counts of continuous trafficking of persons to trafficking as part of the plea bargain. Both charges are first-degree felonies but the continuous count carries a minimum 25-year prison term. The punishment range for trafficking is from five to 99 years and up to life in prison.
“With this plea, the survivors are spared having to testify about their horrific abuse in open court,” Tuggle said. “While I think this defendant deserves to spend the rest of his life in prison, I am thankful and hopeful that this defendant admitting his guilt gives these victims the beginning of closure and healing.”
Davis’ attorney, Phil Frederick, declined comment on the case Thursday.
According to court records, Davis’ son reported that his father was sexually abusing a teenage boy in July 2020. Hewitt officers contacted the teen, who was 19 at the time, and he reported that Davis had sexually assaulted him multiple times beginning in the summer of 2018 at Davis’ home in Hewit, in Texarkana, Arkansas, and in Tyler.
The teen also reported that Davis sexually assaulted his younger brother, who was 16 at the time, and that he forced the brothers to perform sex acts on each other and on Davis while Davis videoed them.
The boy reported that Davis also recorded the brothers while they bathed. Davis had surveillance cameras installed around the home and also used his cell phone, computer camera and hidden cameras that look like clocks to video the sex acts, according to the criminal complaint filed in the case.
“(The younger boy) stated that he would say no to Willie Davis when he wanted to have sex and (the boy) would ask him to stop and ‘Paw Paw’ refused to stop,” the complaint alleges.
Davis, who has been in jail for 666 days, will be given credit toward his sentence for the time he spent in McLennan County Jail waiting to resolve his cases.
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