US man convicted of abusing children in Cambodia

11/06/2014

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) — An American man sought in the U.S. on child sex allegations was convicted Wednesday in Cambodia on charges that he sexually abused five boys at a Christian orphanage he ran.

The Phnom Penh Municipal court sentenced Daniel Johnson to one year in prison for abusing five boys, aged 11 to 15, at the Hope Transitions orphanage, where he served as director, the child protection group Action Pour Les Enfants said.

Johnson, 35, was arrested in December on a request from the FBI, which had tracked him to Cambodia as part of a U.S. investigation into his alleged sexual assault of minors at home, the group said in a statement.

After his arrest, Cambodian authorities launched their own investigation and a subsequent criminal case against Johnson.

He is expected to be extradited to the U.S. after serving his sentence.

Details of Johnson's alleged crimes in the U.S. were not immediately known. An official at the U.S. Embassy in Phnom Penh said he could not comment on the case because it was part of an ongoing investigation.

Poverty and poor law enforcement have made Cambodia a magnet for foreign pedophiles, but in recent years police and courts have increasingly cracked down on sex offenders.