Michael Joseph Pepe at his arrest in Cambodia (Photo: AFP)From wire services
Article Launched: 05/09/2008
The Long Beach Press Telegram
Opening statements are expected today in the downtown Los Angeles trial of a jailed ex-Marine Corps captain accused of raping girls as young as 9 years old while living in Cambodia.
Michael Joseph Pepe, 54, is charged with seven counts of engaging in illicit sexual conduct in foreign places. The federal law that Pepe allegedly broke allows the prosecution of those accused of engaging in child sex tourism.
Pepe faces up to 30 years' imprisonment if he's convicted. He has pleaded not guilty to all counts.
Prosecutors allege that Pepe raped seven preteen girls at his Phnom Penh home beginning in the late fall of 2005 and ending shortly before his June 2006 arrest by the Cambodian National Police. In February 2007, he was extradited to Los Angeles -- the last U.S. city he spent time in before returning to Cambodia after visiting his daughter.
The alleged victims are expected to testify at his trial.
Pepe, who moved to Cambodia in 2003 and married there, allegedly paid a prostitute a finder's fee to bring him young victims, typically between the ages of nine and 15.
He also paid the young girls' families a fee and monthly stipend for access to the girls for sexual gratification, prosecutors said. In one case, the prostitute admitted receiving $10 for finding a young girl, whose family received $300, prosecutors said.
Agents who searched Pepe's home found rope and cloth strips used to restrain the victims, prosecutors said. They also found mind-altering drugs, condoms, Viagra, children's clothes and newspaper articles about pedophiles, prosecutors said.
Pepe's computer contained hundreds of images of nude and semi-clothed children, in some cases bound, performing various sex acts, prosecutors claim.
One witness expected to testify in Pepe's defense is Dr. Michael Maloney, a defense witness in the 1980s McMartin Preschool child molestation trial.
In that trial, Maloney criticized police interview techniques of the alleged victims. He testified that they elicited erroneous information that the children had been sexually abused.
Article Launched: 05/09/2008
The Long Beach Press Telegram
Opening statements are expected today in the downtown Los Angeles trial of a jailed ex-Marine Corps captain accused of raping girls as young as 9 years old while living in Cambodia.
Michael Joseph Pepe, 54, is charged with seven counts of engaging in illicit sexual conduct in foreign places. The federal law that Pepe allegedly broke allows the prosecution of those accused of engaging in child sex tourism.
Pepe faces up to 30 years' imprisonment if he's convicted. He has pleaded not guilty to all counts.
Prosecutors allege that Pepe raped seven preteen girls at his Phnom Penh home beginning in the late fall of 2005 and ending shortly before his June 2006 arrest by the Cambodian National Police. In February 2007, he was extradited to Los Angeles -- the last U.S. city he spent time in before returning to Cambodia after visiting his daughter.
The alleged victims are expected to testify at his trial.
Pepe, who moved to Cambodia in 2003 and married there, allegedly paid a prostitute a finder's fee to bring him young victims, typically between the ages of nine and 15.
He also paid the young girls' families a fee and monthly stipend for access to the girls for sexual gratification, prosecutors said. In one case, the prostitute admitted receiving $10 for finding a young girl, whose family received $300, prosecutors said.
Agents who searched Pepe's home found rope and cloth strips used to restrain the victims, prosecutors said. They also found mind-altering drugs, condoms, Viagra, children's clothes and newspaper articles about pedophiles, prosecutors said.
Pepe's computer contained hundreds of images of nude and semi-clothed children, in some cases bound, performing various sex acts, prosecutors claim.
One witness expected to testify in Pepe's defense is Dr. Michael Maloney, a defense witness in the 1980s McMartin Preschool child molestation trial.
In that trial, Maloney criticized police interview techniques of the alleged victims. He testified that they elicited erroneous information that the children had been sexually abused.
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