
Circuit Judge Dawn Nichols on Wednesday sentenced David Chenowith, a 33-year-old former resident of Langdon Drive in Palm Coast, to 14 years in prison followed by 20 years on sex-offender probation–an extremely restrictive sanction–following a guilty plea on eight charges related to the sexual abuse of children.
Chenowith, a felon who’d already served prison time on a conviction on drug charges and fleeing police, initially faced 32 charges, including molestation, promoting the sexual performance of a child, and transmission of child sexual abuse material, plus numerous counts of illegal use of electronic communications devices. Those charges did not include charges previously filed by the Flagler County Sheriff’s Office that included a count of statutory rape and a count of trafficking a minor, a felony punishable by life. The State Attorney’s Office dropped those charges.
Cumulatively, Chenowith faced 340 years in prison–effectively, life–had been convicted on all the charges, and if the sentences had run consecutively.
While such sentences are almost never imposed, his sentencing scoresheet still added up to a lowest-permissible prison sentence of 426 months, or 35 and a half years.
The negotiated plea between defense attorney Doug Williams and Assistant State Attorney Melissa Clark reduced the charges to eight, all of them second-degree felonies, each carrying a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison. The agreement called for a 14-year sentence on four counts of promoting the sexual performance of a child (Chenowith, had videotaped himself assaulting an underage victim), followed by 15 years on probation for two counts of molestation, and five years in probation for two additional molestation counts, to be served consecutively to the 15 years.
The court declared Chenowitz a sex offender. The sentence also included an agreement stipulated between prosecution and defense on Chenowitz’s sex-offender probation conditions–a long list of restrictions he will have to live with for 20 years after prison, at the risk of returning to prison if he violates any of them.
Restrictions and prohibitions include a curfew, a prohibition on living within 1,000 feet of any place where children gather, schools, day cares, parks and churches included, a prohibition on working or volunteering in such places, including theme parks, a prohibition on any unsupervised contact with anyone under 18, a prohibition on accessing the internet until completion of a treatment program (restrictions apply after completion), maintenance of a driving log, and other restrictions.
The previous article is below.
Palm Coast’s David Chenowith, 32, Faces Charges of Human Trafficking of a Child, Statutory Rape and Molestation
July 22, 2024–Toward the end of June a woman contacted the Sheriff’s Operations Center about a disturbing Facebook message she’d received from a 16-year-old girl. The girl, Chelsea (*), told the woman to be sure to keep David Chenowith away from her children.
Chenowith is a 32-year-old resident of Palm Coast, the father of a 10-year-old girl, and a convicted felon with an extensive arrest record and a previous state prison stint of almost three years. On July 18, the Flagler County Sheriff’s Office arrested him on charges of statutory rape of a 16 year old, molesting a girl younger than 16, and human trafficking of a minor–two second-degree felonies and a life felony if convicted.
Chelsea reported to the woman that Chenowith had engaged in sexual activity with her since she was 15, which would be unlawful, and that he may have sexually abused her little sister. In an interview with Flagler County Sheriff’s deputies, Chelsea said she’d started hanging out with Chenowith even though she didn’t like him, because he had pot, he bought her things, took her places, and claimed he was 19, though before long he’d owned up to being 32.
He also told her that all he wanted to do was help her family. He met Chelsea’s mother and gave her $3,000 to help the family move. But right after the move in May, Chenowith started being more controlling of Chelsea and of her family, saying she was to have no boys around. Chelsea had started a relationship with him as he would seek to trade pot for sex, according to his arrest report–either at her apartment at Tuscan Reserve, when she stayed at the Microtel for a month, or at his mother’s house on Langdon Drive in Palm Coast. When they were in public, he would tell her to lie about her age.
He was also equipped with Plan B, also known as the morning-after pill, in instances when he did not use protection when abusing the girl.
Using what they call “investigative techniques,” which in such cases usually involved controlled calls or texts, with detectives at one end of the line, without the suspect’s knowledge, Chenowith made various admissions: Chelsea had contacted him and claimed to him that she was pregnant: “You made a mistake and now I’m pregnant,” she told him.
“Alright, man, I ain’t made no mistake if a grown-up girl is trying to sell me coochie,” he replied. “I ain’t make no mistake.”
Last Wednesday, he allegedly committed the offenses that aggravated the charges to trafficking: he sent her $50 through Apple Pay after asking her for sexually explicit pictures, then sent her a video of him sexually abusing her.
“During the investigation,” his arrest report states, Chenowith “confirmed numerous times that he had sexual intercourse with” Chelsea. The report describes him as grooming her for sex from the time she was 15.
Authorities issued a be-on-the-lookout for Chenowith on July 18, locating him driving his Toyota on Matanzas Woods Parkway. He was pulled over at Laramie and Lynwood Drive and ordered out of his vehicle at gunpoint. (At one point an uninvolved civilian’s car appears in the line of fire at the intersection where the stop was taking place, then immediately backed up out of sight.)
Deputies had seen Chenowith make “furtive movements” in the car before getting out, according to his arrest report. They allegedly found marijuana, THC gummies, THC cartridges, 9 grams of fentanyl and 9 grams of cocaine, resulting in additional charges of trafficking fentanyl, a first-degree felony, and two counts of drug possession.
“I am well aware of the horrendous crime I committed, as well as the shamefully, embarrassing way I went about getting arrested,” Chenowith wrote Circuit Judge Matt Foxman in 2016, following his arrest at the time on fleeing and eluding police right after he’d been pulled over in the Walmart parking lot, the incident that resulted in his conviction and three-year prison sentence. “I was in a very bad place,” he wrote, blaming the incident on others: his wife and daughter had left for New Jersey for six weeks. “During the month that my family was gone, I went down a road filed with false sense of security” He partied every day, “buying a bunch of drugs and doing them in my apartment.”
He begged the judge, “if there is anything you could do to save my lovely future wife and beautiful daughter we would appreciate it more than you will ever know.” In 2020, he filed a petition to determine the child’s paternity. He was found to be her natural father. On Friday, the child’s mother filed an emergency motion for immediate, full custody.
Chenowith is being held at the Flagler County jail on $117,500 bond on some of the charges and no bond on others. He is also battling a domestic battery charge following an alleged confrontation with his child’s mother last year.
Mia says
these disgusting creeps need the book thrown at them!!
why aren’t landlords doing background checks? how do you let someone with a criminal record like his move into our community.
sick of hearing about these creeps. thrown the key away!!!
Rich says
Gee wiz, i was told palm coast was paradise. Im finding out its as bad as philly!
NJ says
If this TERRIBLE Crime happen in NYC, a Democrat AG would let him out of jail WITHOUT Bail!! Thank God we live in FREEDOM State, Florida where VICTIMS have RIGHTS!
Iron Man says
No fan of his. But uh, he’s been living in Palm Coast since he was a teenager.
Iron Man says
Furthermore, I distinctively remember a past interaction I had with him and his friend. They couldn’t have been more than 16 or 17 if that. Both came into my business high and snarky. I tried to share with them my life’s past mistakes and bad experience’s, and that their future was going to be bleak if they didn’t tighten up. All they could do was grin and joke in my face. Not too long after I watched him like many other youth in this town descend into a life of chaos and here we are today…
Anonymous says
First of all, the house he lives in belongs to his mother who owns the house, he isn’t renting a house. Second of all, he has lived there for well over 10 years. Why the court is even entertaining bind is beyond me, he needs to stay locked up and let the inmates deal with him, not bond out
Doug says
A baseball bat to the head will solve his desires of underage children.
ANNONYMOUS says
To me it sounds like the mother was ok with the “help” she received, seems like once she got what she wanted out of it, is when the police were notified about the actions he had with BOTH daughters. Sounds like there may have been some jealousy between the two daughters and things escalated. Any man that grooms a child is sick. Any grown 32-year-old man who knows what he’s doing is wrong but still does it anyway, needs help. And who the hell says GROWN UP GIRL?? That would be considered an Adult sir, and as an adult he should’ve known better. He knew her real age. He sounds like a real piece of work. Hope he never sees the light of day.
Pink says
lol clowns all of you peds get dead
Iron Man says
The only way this guy got 14 years is because he snitched once again. A Drug dealing child molester. 20 years should have been the minimum that they started at. SMH.
t.o. Doug says
Great, so in 14 years we’ll have a 47 year old, violent pedophile on the loose. Why don’t we ever think about actually protecting the community with these sentences?
Think about it says
Why is it that the restriction for registered SO’s is to stay 1,000 feet away from schools, but the schools tell children that live within 2 miles (or 10.560 feet of the school) that they can’t ride on a bus and have to walk or bike home? The restriction for the SO’s should be AT LEAST 2 miles.
Skibum says
To Think about it…
You do not realize the very negative, potentially dangerous consequences of your suggestion. Do you want to know what would happen if restrictions where sex offenders could live upon release were even more severe than what they already are? I will tell you from my law enforcement experience that only bad things would happen.
Many sex offenders must have regular, mandatory visits by law enforcement so those criminals can be monitored and checked on to ensure compliance to their conditions of release. The only way law enforcement can do that is to know EXACTLY where each and every sex offender is living. When restrictions are too severe, they are unable to obtain an address anywhere, and they end up being released homeless, to wander around, living under a bridge, in thee woods somewhere (could be right behind a school) or going from place to place where law enforcement is unable to find them. That is ALWAYS a very bad release outcome, but it happens more often than most people realize when convicted sex offenders are unable to find an approved address for various reasons. That is why the law about how far they must be from schools, etc. have to be REASONABLE or it will have the opposite result we all want.
Do you want to know where sex offenders, if any, are living close by YOU? The only way the sex offender registry can track them and advise community members if there is a potential problem is if they know the address where released sex offenders live. By law, sex offenders are required to notify law enforcement of their exact address, but if nobody lets them find a house, apt., etc. who knows where they will be laying down at night… bad, bad, bad!
You may have had a good intention with your suggestion, but in reality it would result in an increased number of convicted sex offenders out in our communities with NO ADDRESS, and much more difficulty for law enforcement to monitor them.
Think about it says
Skibum,
Since you’re so worried about how “hard” it is for SO’s out there. I guess they should just stay in prison and save us the trouble then right?
Either that or bus the kids that live close to the schools. Because forcing kids to walk 10,560 feet (knowing that SO’s are allowed to live in 9,560 of those feet) SHOULD be more concerning to people.