Man jailed for traveling repeatedly to Cambodia to have sex with impoverished children

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March 14, 2016 3:53 PM

A onetime Southland resident was found guilty Monday of traveling repeatedly to Cambodia to sexually assault impoverished children, four of whom testified to grueling sexual attacks that had jurors blinking back tears.

Court gavel.

“John” Gerard Boyajian, 55, 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 8 and 11 in a village outside Phnom Penh.

One of the girls — now an adult working in Cambodia to help fellow victims of sexual predators — told jurors that Boyajian paid her grandmother to leave her alone with him in a wooden shack. She described being raped, beaten and bitten on the legs and calves by the defendant during multiple attacks.

Asked by prosecutors to identify her attacker after she took the stand last month, the girl slowly walked to the center of the area in front of the judge, met the gaze of every male in the room, then turned to the defendant and pointed to him.

“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 said.

Boyajian, who represented himself during the trial, seemed to nod his head as the verdicts were read, but otherwise showed no reaction.

“The United States is the world leader in civil rights, and if you are an American and you hurt a child — no matter where it takes place in the world — you will be prosecuted,” Assistant U.S. Attorney David Herzog said outside court.

“All children must be protected from sexual predators — and today’s verdicts confirm that.”

Boyajian was previously convicted in 1994 on nearly two dozen counts of statutory rape in Orange County. He faces up to 30 years behind bars.

American authorities have made more than 70 arrests under the act in countries including Cambodia, Thailand and the Philippines.

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