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IJM Investigation Leads to Federal Conviction of U.S. Pedophile Abusing Children in Cambodia
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Wednesday, 18 June 2008

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA – On May 28, 2008, it took only an hour of deliberations for a federal jury to return a guilty verdict against U.S. citizen Michael Pepe, on trial in U.S. federal court for violently sexually abusing seven young girls in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

Pepe was working part-time as a professor at a Cambodian university when he was arrested by Cambodian authorities in June 2006, after cooperation between Cambodian authorities and International Justice Mission investigators uncovered evidence of his abuse. With a guilty verdict on seven felony counts, Pepe faces up to 210 years in federal prison.

International collaboration between law enforcement and NGOs like International Justice Mission is stopping people like Michael Pepe and sending a strong message to perpetrators of these crimes: Abuse children, and you will go to jail.
– Sharon Cohn Wu, International Justice Mission Senior Vice President of Justice Operations
Pepe’s arrest was achieved through cooperation between IJM and U.S. and Cambodian authorities. Investigations into Pepe’s conduct began when a victim receiving assistance from a partner NGO reported to staff that she and several other young girls had been abused by Pepe. The NGO informed IJM of the victim’s statements.

IJM conducted an investigation of the allegations, sharing information with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the Cambodian National Police. With information furnished by IJM, the Phnom Penh Municipal courts issued search and arrest warrants in the case, leading to Pepe’s eventual deportation to the U.S. for trial.

During the June 2006 search of his home that led to his arrest, Cambodian police found three female victims, aged 9, 10 and 11, as well as hundreds of pornographic images, various drugs, children’s clothes, and rope and cloth strips, which victims say Pepe used to bind and gag them while he assaulted them. Subsequent investigation in Cambodia located four additional minor victims, ranging from 10 to 14 years in age.

Following his arrest by Cambodian authorities, Pepe was deported to the U.S. in February 2007, where he was charged under the PROTECT Act, the U.S. law that makes sexual offenses committed against minors abroad by American citizens punishable in U.S. courts.

Pepe was ordered held without bond until his arraignment, which was May 8, 2008, in the U.S. District Court, Central District of California. According to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Pepe is the fourth individual to be prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California on child sex tourism charges under the PROTECT Act.

Cambodian officers also arrested and charged four other suspects for human trafficking in the case, including Pepe’s girlfriend, Pepe’s cook, and two other women, both of whom were accused of having sold their daughters to Pepe to be abused. Pepe’s girlfriend has since been convicted and sentenced to 27 years in prison for pimping and human trafficking for charges stemming from receiving monetary compensation in return for delivering underage girls to Pepe.

“What we have learned in our casework is that the perpetrators who commit crimes like this are not brave people: They commit these crimes in places like Cambodia because they believe they won’t get caught,” explains Sharon Cohn Wu, human rights lawyer and senior vice president of justice operations for International Justice Mission. “Now, international collaboration between law enforcement and NGOs like International Justice Mission is stopping people like Michael Pepe and sending a strong message to perpetrators of these crimes: Abuse children, and you will go to jail.”
 
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