International Sex Tourist And Child Exploiter Arrested After Trip To Philippines

PLANO, Texas – A Lake Kiowa, Texas man has been arrested and charged with international child exploitation crimes in the Eastern District of Texas, announced U.S. Attorney Stephen J. Cox today.

David Woods, 68, of Lake Kiowa, Cooke County, Texas, has been charged in an indictment returned by a grand jury with coercing and enticing a minor to engage in illegal sexual activity and engaging in illicit sexual conduct in foreign places. Woods has entered “not guilty” pleas to the charges.

Woods came to authorities’ attention in July 2019 when he was encountered by members of Customs and Border Protection at the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport as he returned to the United States from a month-long trip to the Philippines. Agents with Homeland Security Investigations initiated an investigation. They revealed that Woods had used a cell phone, laptop, and a social media application to persuade, induce, entice, and coerce a minor female victim in the Philippines to engage in sex acts, film those acts, and send the images and videos to him. Agents also discovered that Woods became involved in sex acts with the same child victim after traveling to the Philippines in 2019. Officials arrested Woods on September 25, 2020, at the George Bush International Airport in Houston, Texas, as he arrived on a flight from the Philippines.

If convicted, Woods faces a minimum of ten years and up to life in federal prison.

Project Safe Childhood brings this case as a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice. United States Attorneys’ Offices and the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS) lead the Project Safe Childhood. Marshals federal, state, and local resources work to locate better, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the Internet and identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.projectsafechildhood.gov.<http://www.projectsafechildhood.gov.>

Homeland Security Investigations-Dallas is being investigated, with assistance from Customs and Border Protection in Houston, Dallas, and Honolulu, HSI-Philippines, and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Assistant U.S. Attorney Marisa J. Miller is prosecuting the case.