University professor on FBI most-wanted list captured in Mexico

[News_Editor]

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA (BNO NEWS) -- A former University of Southern California professor, who was recently added to the FBI's most-wanted list for allegedly having sex with children in the Philippines, was arrested in Mexico on Tuesday after a tip had been received.

Walter Lee Williams, 64, was arrested on Tuesday evening at an undisclosed location in Mexico, said Laura Eimiller, a spokeswoman for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). It came only a day after Williams became the 500th addition to the FBI's Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list.

"The FBI received information about a possible location for Williams within Mexico and, through the FBI's Legal Attache in Mexico City, requested assistance from Mexican authorities to locate and apprehend Williams," Eimiller said. "With respect to our Mexican partners and necessary legal arrangements being made to return Williams to U.S. custody, no further details are being made available at this time."

Williams was charged in an indictment unsealed in California last week that charges the former USC university professor with one count of producing child pornography, one count of traveling for the purpose of engaging in illicit sexual conduct with a minor and two counts of engaging in illicit sexual conduct in foreign places.

According to prosecutors, Williams met two 14-year-old boys from the Philippines on the Internet in 2010 and engaged in sexual activity with them during webcam sessions. He later expressed a desire to visit them in the Philippines to have sex, and he traveled from Los Angeles to the Philippines in January 2011.

While in the Philippines, prosecutors allege Williams engaged in sex acts with both boys and produced sexually explicit photos of one of them. He fled the Los Angeles area approximately one week after returning from the Philippines, and he had remained on the run ever since.

Prosecutors, who believed Williams had fled to either Mexico or Peru, previously said he has an extensive history of travel throughout the Southeast Asia region, which is notorious for child sex tourism. Besides repeated travels to the Philippines, he is also believed to have resided in Indonesia, Polynesia and Thailand.

"The FBI's Ten Most Wanted List reaches consumers of news and Internet users globally and we believe that Williams inclusion on this list of notorious fugitives will lead to the tip that breaks this case," Bill Lewis, the Assistant Director in Charge of the FBIâs Los Angeles Field Office, said on Monday. "The allegations Williams faces are serious and we hope to catch him quickly before more children are abused."

The FBI had offered a reward of up to $100,000 for information leading directly to the arrest of Williams, but it was not immediately known if anyone would be eligible for the reward.

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