ORMOND MAN ACCUSED OF SEX
CRIMES HELD ON $1.5 MILLION BOND
Arrested in July for having sex
with a 15-year-old boy, F. Douglas Wilhite is facing 15 more
criminal charges after new details emerged from several
additional teens who got drawn into Wilhite’s life of
nudity, sex, alcohol and pornography. Volusia County
Sheriff’s investigators took Wilhite into custody Thursday
night after a judge ordered him jailed on more than $1.5
million bond. The new charges came after investigators
interviewed seven additional victims.
The Sheriff’s Office initially
arrested Wilhite on July 10 on charges of plying a
15-year-old boy with beer, wine and vodka and then having
sex with him about a dozen times between February and May.
The teen had been living with Wilhite and his wife at the
time at the couple’s home at 6 Walnut Court near Ormond
Beach. None of the seven new victims -- a mixture of boys
and girls between the ages of 14-16 -- reported having sex
with Wilhite. However, all told stories of Wilhite parading
naked around the house, offering them alcohol, showing them
pornographic movies and encouraging them to have sex in
front of him so he could watch. Five of the seven new
victims acknowledged getting naked in front of Wilhite, at
the defendant’s insistence. Many said playing billiards in
the nude was a common occurrence at Wilhite’s house. Others
said the 56-year-old Wilhite told them it was a house rule
that they couldn’t use his workout room unless they took
their clothes off.
Two of the victims said they had
sex in front of Wilhite after he asked them to. And one of
the girls said Wilhite would masturbate while watching her
and another boy have sex inside the house. Others times, she
and the boy would have sex in the back seat of Wilhite’s car
while Wilhite drove and watched -- including one encounter
while on their way to church. Two other girls said that on
occasion, they had sex with a teenage boy inside a bedroom
and they thought the liaisons were private. But they later
learned that Wilhite was watching. One of them said she
noticed Wilhite peering through a bedroom window and
masturbating. Two of the girls told investigators that
Wilhite had grabbed their naked butts, and one of the two
also said that he had rubbed his penis up against her.
According to witness statements,
the common bond between the seven new teens was the
15-year-old boy that Wilhite is accused of sexually
victimizing. The others said they were drawn to Wilhite’s
home in order to visit the boy. In fact, the boy told
investigators that Wilhite brought some of the girls home to
serve as the boy’s sex partners. The investigation was
initiated when the boy ran away from Wilhite’s home on May
18 and Wilhite’s wife, Sherry, called the Sheriff’s Office
to report him missing. While interviewing Wilhite regarding
the missing boy, deputies learned troubling information
about Wilhite’s lifestyle that resulted in the Sheriff’s
Office’s Sex Crimes Unit launching an investigation. The boy
eventually was located in Virginia in June. When he was
interviewed, the boy detailed months of sexual abuse at the
hands of Wilhite. The disclosures led to the issuance of the
first arrest warrant for Wilhite. Meanwhile, deputies who
went to his house to take the defendant into custody back in
July got a first-hand view of Wilhite’s liberal lifestyle
when he answered the door in the nude. Deputies asked
Wilhite several times to put some clothes on, but he
initially refused and demanded to be taken to jail in the
nude. He changed his mind and put on some clothes after
being told that walking around in public while naked would
result in an additional criminal charge.
Following the arrest on July 10,
Sheriff’s investigators continued to look into the
defendant’s actions and were able to track down the other
seven teenagers and get them to talk about what had been
going on inside Wilhite’s home. That information resulted in
the Sheriff’s Office obtaining arrest warrants on Thursday
charging Wilhite with six counts of contributing to the
delinquency of a child, five counts of showing obscene
material to a minor, three counts of lewd or lascivious
conduct and one count of lewd or lascivious exhibition. The
warrants were issued Thursday by Circuit Court Judge Raul
Zambrano, with bonds totaling $1,556,000. With the warrants
in hand, Sheriff’s investigators picked up Wilhite at his
home on Walnut Court at about 9:15 p.m. and wrapped him in a
blanket for the ride to the Sheriff’s Office’s district
headquarters in Holly Hill after he refused to put clothes
on. After the paperwork is processed, Wilhite will be
transported to the Volusia County Branch Jail in Daytona
Beach.
