A Change of Guard

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Friday 5 February 2016

Sex tourism trial starts for man accused of traveling to Cambodia to ‘sexually assault impoverished migrant children’


Posted by Hillary Jackson on February 3, 2016 in Crime

Photo via Wikimedia Commons

A federal prosecutor told a jury Wednesday that a onetime Southland resident traveled repeatedly to Cambodia to “sexually assault impoverished migrant children,” but the man, who is defending himself, postponed his opening statement.

Delays have kept the case against Ronald “John” Gerard Boyajian at a stalemate for years prior to the start of trial.

“This case is about a man who wanted to sexually assault children — and he found a place where he could do that,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Vanessa Baehr-Jones alleged.

Boyajian traveled to Cambodia — one of Southeast Asia’s poorest countries — about three-dozen times between 2002 and 2009, where he engaged in sexual activity with Vietnamese girls between the ages of 9 and 12 in a village outside Phnom Penh frequented by child molesters and known as “Kilo 11,” the prosecutor alleged.

The defendant is accused in a three-count federal indictment initially handed down in September 2009 with international travel with intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct with minors, engaging in illicit sexual conduct with a minor in foreign places, and commission of a felony offense involving a minor while required to register as a sex offender.

He was convicted in 1994 on nearly two dozen counts of statutory rape in Orange County, court records show.

Boyajian, now 55, was among the first defendants charged under an international law enforcement initiative specifically targeting Americans traveling to Cambodia for the purpose of sexually abusing children.

Operation Twisted Traveler was an effort by the Justice Department and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to crack down on sex tourism.

Boyajian has been in custody in Los Angeles since his removal from Cambodia seven years ago.  In the years since he was charged, Boyajian has lodged a raft of motions and continuances, ensuring the case remained deadlocked.

In the minutes before the jury was called into the courtroom for opening statements, Boyajian made a motion to have U.S. District Judge Christine Snyder removed from the case.

According to the initial complaint, the investigation of Boyajian was begun by the Cambodian non-governmental organization Action Pour Les Enfants — APLE — whose investigators allegedly witnessed Boyajian visiting a child brothel in Svay Pak, a red-light district on the outskirts of the capital Phnom Penh.

“It was here — halfway across the world — that foreigners like the defendant could freely target children who were being sold into prostitution,” Baehr-Jones alleged.

The federal prosecutor told the panel that one of the girls in the case identified Boyajian in a photo line-up and said she had met with him multiple times. She is expected to testify at some point in the trial.

In September, an 81-year-old pedophile who previously served time for molesting a Southern California child was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison for having sexual contact with two 12-year-old boys in Southeast Asia.

Jack “Dad” Sporich was expelled from Cambodia in 2009 and — like Boyajian — charged in Los Angeles as a result of Operation Twisted Traveler.

Witnesses said Sporich, who once lived in Santa Monica, drove his motor bike through the streets of the resort town of Siem Riep, dropping Cambodian currency to attract children.

A third Southland man — Erik “Alex” Peeters — pleaded guilty in Los Angeles federal court to international travel and engaging in illicit sexual conduct with minors, and is expected to be sentenced later this year.

Peeters engaged in sexual activity with at least three Cambodian boys whom he allegedly paid $5 to $10 for sex, prosecutors said.

Boyajian, Sporich and Peeters were charged under the Protect Act, which became law in 2003 and made it easier for U.S. authorities to prosecute people for overseas sex crimes. Federal authorities have made more than 70 arrests under the act in countries including Cambodia, Thailand and the Philippines.

— City News Service

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