Jury Convicts Husband and Wife at Trial on All Counts in Child Sex Abuse Case

United States Attorney Richard W. Moore of the Southern District of Alabama announces today that a federal jury in Mobile, Alabama found defendant Mack Doak, 51, and his wife, co-defendant Jaycee Doak, 41, guilty on all charges in a child exploitation case spanning multiple jurisdictions. Chief United States District Judge Kristi K. DuBose presided over the trial, which started on May 20, 2019 and ended three days later. The defendants are scheduled to be sentenced on August 30, 2019. Mack Doak faces a mandatory minimum sentence of thirty years in prison and a maximum sentence of life imprisonment. Jaycee Doak faces a mandatory minimum sentence of ten years in prison and a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.

On August 31, 2018, a federal grand jury for the Southern District of Alabama indicted the defendants on one count of violating 18 U.S.C. § 2423(a), a statute that criminalizes the transportation of minors across state lines with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity. The grand jury returned a 9-count superseding indictment on March 29, 2019, charging the defendants with six counts of violating 18 U.S.C. § 2423(a) and Mack Doak with three counts of violating 18 U.S.C. § 2241(c), a statute that criminalizes aggravated sexual abuse by prohibiting the crossing of a state line with intent to engage in a sexual act with a child under the age of twelve.

The jury heard the below evidence at trial. Three child victims were abused for years by the defendants. The victims testified at trial that Mack Doak had sexually abused them in Texas, Florida, and Alabama and that they had disclosed the sexual abuse to Jaycee Doak, who was herself physically and verbally abusive and had tried to cover-up the sexual abuse.

In 2012, Mack Doak began sexually abusing Victims 1-3 in Rosharon, Texas. Victim 1 testified that she told Jaycee Doak back when the abuse started in Texas that Mack Doak had raped her. Jaycee Doak insisted that Victim 1 not tell anyone because disclosure of the abuse would be ruinous. One witness testified that Jaycee Doak told her about Victim 1’s rape allegation and that Jaycee Doak told the witness not to tell anyone. The witness testified that she urged Jaycee Doak to report the abuse and take Victim 1 to a doctor but that Jaycee Doak did neither. Another witness testified that she herself was raped by Mack Doak years earlier and that she had disclosed the abuse to the defendants in 2012. Another witness testified that around March 2013, after allegations of Mack Doak’s sexual abuse had begun to surface, Mack Doak had a pistol in his hand at his home and had threatened suicide, telling the witness, “I did something really bad and I’m not going to jail for it.”

In early 2014, the defendants moved from Rosharon to Butler, Alabama and then in August 2014 relocated to Pinellas Park, Florida, where Mack Doak continued to sexually abuse the victims. The defendants moved in November 2016 to Thomasville, Alabama, where the abuse persisted. The jury heard testimony that Mack Doak would periodically call a victim into his bedroom, close the door, and play loud music, and that the victim would appear upset after exiting the room. One witness testified that he saw Mack Doak sexually abusing Victim 2 one morning at the defendants’ home in Thomasville, and that Mack Doak saw him and told him to return to bed and not discuss what he had seen. After less than a year in Thomasville, the defendants moved to Monroeville, Alabama, where the sexual abuse continued and Jaycee Doak’s physical and verbal abuse escalated.

In early February 2018, the Monroeville Police Department received information about the sexual abuse. On February 4, a police investigator and a Monroe County Department of Human Resources caseworker visited the victims, who disclosed the abuse and indicated that they were unsafe in the defendants’ care. The next day, the defendants were arrested on state charges for rape, incest, and sexual abuse. On February 8, the victims were forensically interviewed at a child advocacy center in Brewton, Alabama and elaborated upon the abuse. Victim 1 told her interviewer that she had been sexually abused alongside a mat in the basement area of the defendants’ home in Monroeville. On February 9, the police executed a search warrant at the defendants’ home and seized physical evidence, including the mat. The police later took buccal samples from Mack Doak and the victims and sent the samples and the mat to a Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) laboratory in Quantico, Virginia for testing. An FBI forensic examiner testified at trial that the likelihood ratios were very high that the mat contained Mack Doak’s semen and Victim 1’s DNA. Moreover, a pediatrician who had physically examined the victims testified that they showed signs of having been sexually abused.

After the jury’s verdicts, United States Attorney Richard W. Moore said, “Our federal prosecutors and our law enforcement partners are highly-skilled and persistent when we find evidence of child sex abuse. These cases demand our very best prosecution and investigation efforts and the jury in this particular case seemed to have no difficulty in determining that the defendants were guilty as charged. We will continue to bring to justice those who would molest our most vulnerable victims such as the children in this case. I want to thank our three prosecutors, Assistant U.S. Attorneys Maria Murphy, Sinan Kalayoglu, and Kacey Chappelear, our prosecution support team from the U.S. Attorney’s Office, and the agents and officers who investigated this case. They did a fantastic job.”

FBI Special Agent in Charge James Jewell stated, “The men and women of the FBI will continue to work with our state and local partners to serve the victims of these horrific crimes and see to it that justice is served. There is no place for this type of behavior in our society and the jury’s verdicts of guilty were a victory for law enforcement and most deservedly the victims.”

The FBI, the Monroeville Police Department, and the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency investigated the case. Assistant United States Attorneys Sinan Kalayoglu, Kacey Chappelear, and Maria Murphy are prosecuting the case.