OAKLAND COUNTY, Mich. – A man who volunteers as an assistant basketball coach at an Oakland County middle school has been accused of having and filming sex with a 12-year-old girl, who is far below the age of legal consent in Michigan.
A criminal complaint filed Wednesday by a Detroit FBI agent claims that 20-year-old Daveughn Gray, of Detroit, filmed sexual encounters with a middle school girl earlier this year when he was 19 years old. Gray reportedly volunteers as an assistant coach for the boy’s basketball team at the same Oakland County middle school.
Authorities did not identify exactly what middle school is involved in this case.
What happened
According to the affidavit, Gray approached the 12-year-old girl in January while she was waiting to be picked up from cheerleading practice. Gray reportedly told the girl he was 15 years old, and she told him she was 12 years old.
Gray then reached out to the middle school girl on Instagram and Snapchat and told her he liked her, the complaint reads.
Then, on Jan. 10 or Jan. 11, Gray allegedly asked the girl to come over to his house. The girl was at a sleepover at her friend’s house in Detroit. The FBI says that evidence shows Gray ordered the girl an Uber or Lyft ride to his home.
When the girl got to Gray’s house, where he lives with his mother, he “continually asked her to do ‘it,’” the complaint said. Gray and the girl had sex, which Gray recorded on his cellphone, authorities claim.
Gray then allegedly ordered a ride to take the girl back to her friend’s house.
It is also alleged that Gray had sex with the girl again on Jan. 15.
The 12-year-old told her mother that she went to Gray’s house in Detroit during the early morning hours of Jan. 15, the complaint said. She reportedly snuck out of a friend’s house where she was staying for the weekend. Gray is accused of ordering her an Uber or Lyft ride to his house, and then back to her friend’s house after they had sex, officials said.
The criminal complaint did not explicitly say whether the sexual encounters were consensual, but it does not matter in terms of law: In Michigan, a person must be 16 years old or older to legally consent to sexual activity. A 12-year-old is a child and cannot legally consent to sex.
How the video was found
The video footage of the first sexual encounter was discovered by another student at the middle school. According to the affidavit, a student allowed the 12-year-old girl to borrow their phone, and then discovered “several videos and images” of the 12-year-old girl having sex with an adult man after the phone was returned.
The student took a screenshot of a video in which the 12-year-old was allegedly having sex with Gray. That screenshot was shared in an Instagram group chat, and then later shown to a middle school teacher. The teacher described what they saw to law enforcement.
While no faces were visible in the screenshot, the students who saw the screenshot told the teacher they believed Gray was the man in the video. Though the girl’s face wasn’t visible in the video, the hairstyle of the girl in the video is reportedly associated with the 12-year-old girl involved in this case.
A video of the believed second sexual encounter between the man and the girl was later found on Gray’s phone by law enforcement.
Search warrant findings
Law enforcement searched the 12-year-old girl’s cell phone and found text message conversations between her and a phone number that belongs to Gray. In those messages, Gray reportedly admits to having sex with the girl and that he wants to have sex with her again.
It is not explicitly written in the complaint, but it appears that the girl might have admitted to authorities that she did have sex with Gray.
Investigators carried out a search warrant at Gray’s home on April 27. After reviewing Gray’s cellphone, investigators found videos of his sexual encounters, in which the man is wearing a “distinct black and white bracelet.”
Authorities specifically discovered a video of a sexual encounter filmed by Gray at about 2 a.m. on Jan. 15 -- the same day that the 12-year-old girl said she went to Gray’s home. The video was recorded at his home, according to the video’s data, the FBI said.
Though the video did not show Gray’s face, the man in the video was wearing the same black and white bracelet seen in sexual videos that do include Gray’s face, officials said.
Gray denies accusations
During the search at Gray’s home, the man reportedly told investigators that he was only communicating with the middle school student outside of school “so he could talk to her for his close friend, who was another middle school student,” the complaint said. Gray admitted to ordering an Uber ride for the 12-year-old girl one night in January, but said it was so his middle school-aged friend could have sex with the girl, not him.
The man told investigators that the middle school boy must have recorded the sexual encounter with the 12-year-old girl on his phone. Gray claimed that he “always puts his face in his sex videos so that someone watching it would know the sex was consensual.”
Gray also said the communication with the girl on his phone was being carried out by his middle school friend. But, because the conversations took place throughout all hours of the day and night over the course of a week, it is “extremely unlikely that his friend had control of Gray’s phone for that long a time period,” the affidavit reads.
Investigators say they interviewed involved students and their parents, one of whom said they had previously seen Gray “flirting” with other middle school students and warned him to stop.
What’s next
The FBI agent has filed a formal complaint against Gray regarding the child pornography accusations, but formal charges have not been issued as of May 10. The complaint is requesting an arrest warrant for Gray.
Based on the investigation, the FBI agent says the video and screenshot of the video of the first sex encounter “meet the federal definition of child pornography.” The criminal complaint states that there is probable cause to believe that Gray produced, possessed and distributed child pornography.
Full criminal complaint
You can read the entire criminal complaint against Gray below.