Husband and Wife Sentenced in Child Sex Abuse Case: Husband Receives 40 Years in Prison; Wife Receives 10 Years

United States Attorney Richard W. Moore of the Southern District of Alabama announces today that Chief United States District Judge Kristi K. DuBose sentenced defendant Mack Doak, 51, to 40 years imprisonment and his wife, co-defendant Jaycee Doak, 42, to 10 years imprisonment after a federal jury found them guilty at trial in May 2019 on all charges in a child exploitation case spanning multiple jurisdictions. The defendants faced up to life in prison for their crimes. As part of their sentences, the judge ordered that the defendants receive mental health and sex offender treatment as directed by the U.S. Probation Office, register as sex offenders under the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act, and pay restitution totaling $225,000. The judge further ordered Mack Doak to pay a $30,900 mandatory special assessment and to be on supervised release for 15 years after finishing his prison term. The judge also ordered Jaycee Doak to pay a $25,600 mandatory special assessment and to be on supervised release for 5 years after finishing her prison term.

After the sentencing hearings, United States Attorney Moore said, “The investigators and prosecutors did their job. A jury of the defendants’ peers found them guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. The Court has imposed substantial sentences of imprisonment. Our criminal justice system has worked as best we could expect. Still, we take little comfort in any of this because the damage to young lives here is so severe and so undeserved. We cannot make these children whole again. Something precious has been taken from them that we are powerless to give back. What we can do is stand together against the horror of child sex abuse and always do our best to protect children from evil whenever possible. This case is a reminder that we must always be vigilant when the safety of our children is at risk.”

Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Special Agent in Charge James Jewell stated, “Crimes against children are always a priority but when the men and women of the FBI can assist our state and local partners bring a sense of justice to these young victims then this prosecution is a success. The sentences handed down today from the courts will hopefully deter a predator from hurting a child in the future.”

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 three days of evidence during the trial, which began on May 20, 2019. According to the evidence introduced 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 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 an 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.

The victims wrote to the Court before today’s sentencing hearings. They described how the defendants’ abuse had irreparably altered their lives.   

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

This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.justice.gov/psc.