Former Ketchikan church elder admits producing child abuse images in Mexico

Dwight Chris John, a 74-year-old former church elder from Ketchikan, Alaska, pleaded guilty to possessing child sexual abuse material depicting a minor under the age of 12, the Department of Justice announced.

Assistant Attorney General A. Tysen Duva of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division said John “repeatedly exploited a vulnerable child in Mexico and engaged in the exploitation of children online in Alaska.” Duva called the guilty plea “an important step toward justice for these children” and said the department would hold U.S. citizens accountable wherever they exploit children.

FBI Anchorage Field Office Special Agent in Charge Matthew Schlegel said John’s “reprehensible pattern of conduct involving online child exploitation” showed that he “posed a significant threat to children in Alaska and abroad.” Schlegel said protecting children is one of the FBI’s highest priorities and that the FBI and its law enforcement partners “will continue to pursue and hold accountable anyone who exploits our most vulnerable.”

According to court documents, John’s relatives contacted the Ketchikan Police Department in May 2024 after discovering a USB drive they believed contained child sexual abuse material. At the time, John was serving a sentence in an Alaska state prison for sexually abusing a minor.

A law enforcement officer who reviewed the USB drive found numerous sexually explicit images of a young girl John knew through an institution in Mexico, according to court documents. Subsequent searches of John’s cell phones and laptop turned up dozens of additional sexually explicit photographs of the same victim, along with more than 1,000 images of child sexual abuse material depicting prepubescent minors, including infants and toddlers.

John admitted producing sexually explicit photographs of the minor victim during trips to Mexico in 2018 and 2019, according to the Justice Department.

John was charged in late 2025 through Operation Relentless Justice, a coordinated law enforcement effort to identify, track and arrest child sex predators. He is scheduled to be sentenced Dec. 16 and faces a minimum of 10 years and a maximum of 15 years in prison. A federal district court judge will determine the sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.

The FBI’s Anchorage Field Office and Juneau Resident Agency investigated the case with assistance from the Ketchikan Police Department as part of the FBI’s Child Exploitation and Human Trafficking Task Force. Trial Attorney Rachel L. Rothberg of the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section and Assistant U.S. Attorney Jack Schmidt for the District of Alaska are prosecuting the case.

The case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide Justice Department initiative launched in May 2006 to combat child sexual exploitation and abuse.