Source: Office of United States Attorneys
MUSKOGEE, OKLAHOMA – The United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Oklahoma announced that Phillip Dale Wilson, age 72, of Tahlequah, Oklahoma, was sentenced to 204 months each on two counts of Abusive Sexual Contact in Indian Country. The terms are to be served concurrently for a total prison term of 17 years.
The charges arose from an investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office.
On December 18, 2023, Phillip Dale Wilson pleaded guilty to the charges. According to investigators, beginning in December of 1999 and continuing until November of 2005, Wilson sexually abused a child he knew to be under the age of 12. Investigators also established that between April 2004 and March 2011, Wilson sexually abused a second child he knew to be under the age of 12. The investigation further revealed that between September 2001 and December 2015 Wilson sexually abused three other children under the age of 12 and another child under the age of 16.
The crimes occurred in Cherokee County, within the boundaries of the Cherokee Nation Reservation, in the Eastern District of Oklahoma.
“This case demonstrates the commitment of the FBI to investigate anyone who would harm the most vulnerable members of the community, our children,” said FBI Oklahoma City Special Agent in Charge Doug Goodwater. “The FBI will continue to work with our law enforcement partners to relentlessly pursue child sex offenders and send them to federal prison where they belong.”
“Due in large part to the bravery of the victims and the exceptional investigative work of the Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office and the FBI, the defendant will likely spend the rest of his life behind bars,” said United States Attorney Christopher J. Wilson. “No prison sentence can undo the physical and emotional damage the defendant inflicted on his victims, but I hope they can have some measure of peace in knowing the defendant no longer poses a threat to them or other children.”
The Honorable Raúl M. Arias-Marxuach, Chief District Judge in the United States District Court for Puerto Rico, sitting by assignment, presided over the hearing in Muskogee, Oklahoma. Wilson will remain in the custody of the U.S. Marshal pending transportation to a designated United States Bureau of Prisons facility to serve a non-paroleable sentence of incarceration.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Nicole Paladino represented the United States.