Two American Plead Guilty To Child Sex Charges While In Thailand

[sriracha john]

Two Men Plead Guilty on International Sex Tourism Charges

Two men pleaded guilty today to traveling, and conspiring to travel, in foreign commerce with the intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct with children, Acting Assistant Attorney General of the Criminal Division Matthew Friedrich and U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Alabama Deborah J. Rhodes announced.

During the plea hearing before U.S. District Judge Kristi K. DuBose, Burgess Lee Burgess, 44, of Mobile, Ala., and Mitchell Kent Jackson, 31, of Pensacola, Fla., both admitted that they traveled to Thailand between 2000 and 2002. According to their pleas, Burgess and Jackson traveled with the intent to sexually abuse children, paid for access to children and in fact sexually abused children.

Burgess and Jackson admitted in their pleas that in preparation for their travel to Thailand, they corresponded with Wayne Nelson Corliss of New Jersey.

According to plea documents, Corliss himself was in contact with another individual who was a resident of Thailand. Also according to plea documents, Burgess, Jackson, Corliss and the individual in Thailand were all members of an Internet chat group dedicated to men with a sexual interest in minor boys.

The individual in Thailand invited Burgess, Jackson and Corliss to visit him in Thailand to engage in sexual acts with minor Thai boys. In addition to sexually abusing children, the plea documents state that Burgess, Jackson and Corliss photographed and videotaped the Thai boys.

Corliss was identified in May 2008 after Interpol released a photo to media outlets in the United States and abroad, and made a global appeal for information that could identify the offender depicted in the photo. The image had been cropped from photos depicting him sexually abusing young children in Southeast Asia. Within 48 hours, and acting on information obtained from individuals who recognized the offender as Corliss, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, coordinating with Interpol the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of New Jersey and the Criminal Division's Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS) located and arrested Corliss. He pleaded guilty on Oct. 28, 2008.

Burgess and Jackson will be sentenced on April 3, 2009. At sentencing, the men will face a maximum term of 30 years in prison. They also face the possibility of lifetime supervised release following their prison terms and a $250,000 fine.

This case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Sean Costello of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Alabama, with assistance provided by CEOS Attorney Michael Yoon and Lee Vartan of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of New Jersey. The case was investigated by Interpol and ICE.

- U.S. Department of Justice press release / 2008-11-13

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Two men plead guilty in federal court to 'sex tourism' charges involving Thai boys

Two men pleaded guilty in Mobile, Alabama Thursday to allegations that they made trips to Thailand to have sex with boys younger than 10.

U.S. Attorney Deborah Rhodes said outside the courtroom that the case offered a rare glimpse into "the nasty business of sex tourism."

Burgess Lee Burgess of Mobile, and Mitchell Kent Jackson, a Pensacola man who previously lived in Mobile, pleaded guilty to traveling to have sex with a minor and conspiracy to do so.

Their guilty pleas headed off a trial that was set for next week.

According to court records, the men ran a Web site called boyhoodparadise.com, through which they met a New Jersey man who set up the trips to Thailand from 2000 to 2002. Burgess, 44, and Jackson, 31, made three visits to the country, according to prosecutors.

The southeast Asian nation has been described for years as one of the world's sex trade capitals, a scene of flourishing prostitution and child sex trafficking.

Rhodes declined to discuss how many people might have been involved in the trips, or whether additional arrests were imminent.

Asked how widespread that sex tourism is, in general, Rhodes replied, "More common that we'd like to admit."

Burgess's lawyer, Donald E. "Skip" Brutkiewicz Jr., said his client did not realize that he was violating the law, because he was outside the U.S. when he had sex with children. "This is something that happened over six years ago," he said.

According to an account laid out in Burgess's written plea agreement, he and Jackson operated boyhoodparadise.com from 1999 to 2001, supplying pictures of nud_e young boys.

Through the Web site, they met an actor from New Jersey named Wayne Nelson Corliss, who had small roles in two movies under the stage name Casey Wayne and has portrayed Santa Claus at office parties in New York.

Corliss pleaded guilty to related charges last month in New Jersey.

Corliss traveled to Thailand with Burgess and Jackson in April 2000 at the invitation of an acquaintance named John Wrenshall.

Wrenshall, a Canadian man who lived in Thailand at the time, had corresponded with the other three men through "Big Boy Love and Chat," an Internet chat room dedicated to their sexual interest in young boys.

Wrenshall quoted them a price of $200 for first-time oral sex with a boy and $20 thereafter. He also explained that if the men "sponsored" a Thai boy for $400, they could "essentially have unfettered access to the boys during the visit" the plea deal states.

Corliss, Jackson, and Burgess returned to Thailand in April 2001, again paying Wrenshall for sexual acts with boys.

In April 2002, they made a third visit. This time, according to the plea agreement, Jackson, Burgess, and Corliss photographed and videotaped the sexual acts that they engaged in.

The plea agreement did not specify the boys' ages, but Corliss admitted during his plea hearing that they were 6 and 9.

Jackson's lawyer, Neil Hanley, unsuccessfully sought to have his client remain free until his sentencing in April. He said that Jackson, a Web page designer, walked away from the criminal behavior long before he was arrested or knew of the investigation.

U.S. District Judge Kristi DuBose told Hanley that she would consider the information at sentencing. U.S. marshals led both men out of the courtroom in handcuffs.

Press-Register (Mobile, Alabama, USA) / 2008-11-14

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The case of Wayne Nelson Corliss, who is discussed in these articles, is detailed here:

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/American-Ple...-C-t219929.html

American Pleads Guilty To Child Sex Charges While In Thailand, faces up to 75 years in prison for sex with boys as young as 6

and here:

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/Alleged-Paed...le-t187337.html

Have You Seen This Alleged Pedophile

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Note:

All of these men are being prosecuted with U.S. Federal charges. Once sentenced, they will serve their full sentences without any possibility of parole.

[TexasRanger]

If we don't stand up for children, then we don't stand for much.

I would like to see the people who make these kids available get some justice too.

[sbk]

As per forum policy regarding pedophile threads

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