Karate instructor sentenced for sexually abusing boys
Harry "Craig" Conaway
BETHESDA - A 72-year-old karate instructor who ran a dojo out of his home has been sentenced to 15 years in prison for sex offenses involving children.
In July 2023, a 10-year-old boy reported that he was sexually abused by his karate instructor, Harry "Craig" Conaway. The boy said he took lessons on weekends at Conaway's dojo, which was a converted storage shed on Conaway's property in Hanover.
The 10-year-old reported that Conaway would make him shower after each lesson, and Conaway would watch. Conaway also forced him to take capsules that would make him sleepy, measured his genitalia and other lewd acts, and sexually assaulted him. In May 2023, he said Conaway tried to force the boy to touch his privates. The boy was able to run away.
After Conaway was charged with assaulting the 10-year-old boy, a 35-year-old came forward and said that as a child he was a student of Conaway's dojo. He said Conaway would massage him, which led to sexual acts.
"As an instructor of martial arts, the defendant was expected to instill confidence and teach self-defense. As it turned out, the students needed defense against their own teacher who groomed and engaged them in sexual acts," said State's Attorney Anne Colt Leitess. "I commend both the young survivor who felt confident and secure enough to report what was happening to him. His courage led to a second victim also feeling empowered to come forward to also report his own terrible experience when he was a teenager."
Conaway pleaded guilty on February 6, 2024, to two counts of Third-Degree Sex Offense. On Friday, he was sentenced to 15 years of incarceration. He was lso ordered to serve a mandatory five years of supervised probation and may not return to his home, where he ran his dojo, and was ordered to have no contact with the victims and other minor children.