Kent man sentenced to 15 years for sexual exploitation of girls in Cambodia

A 59-year-old Kent man was sentenced Friday in U.S. District Court in Seattle to 15 years in prison, lifetime supervised release, a $11,000 fine and $8,000 in restitution for sexual exploitation of a child.

Craig Thomas Carr traveled to Cambodia in January to have sex with underage girls. Carr will be required to register as a sex offender when released from prison, according to a U.S. Attorney’s Office Western District of Washington media release.

“You prey on the most vulnerable of victims… very young girls,” U.S. District Judge Richard A. Jones said to Carr. “What you were doing satisfying your fantasy one night leads to a lifetime of nightmares for them.”

Jones imposed the fine saying it was the same amount of money Carr spent on his trip to Cambodia.

Carr pleaded guilty July 27 to sexual exploitation of a child.

According to the facts admitted in his plea agreement, Carr made contact over the internet with a person in Cambodia who agreed to find girls for him to have sex with during a visit to Cambodia.

Carr paid this person approximately $8,000 for sex with the minor females during a week-long trip to Cambodia. He informed the person arranging the sexual encounters that he wanted the girls to be about 12 years old.

Carr sent his Cambodian contact sexually explicit photographs of minors to show the approximate age of the girls he was seeking. He also asked the source in Cambodia if he could take naked photos of the girls, and, he requested the address of a FedEx store in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, so he could send the photos to his Kent home.

The Kent man traveled to Phnom Penh from Seattle on Jan. 13. He was arrested January 22 by the Cambodian National Police and remained in their custody until U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents accompanied him May 7 on a flight from Cambodia to the U.S.

Carr admitted that he had sex with three young females over his eight days in Cambodia. His camera contained pictures of three young victims. Two of the victims have been located. Carr has agreed to pay $8,000 in restitution to the Cambodian victims.

“This prison sentence is appropriate punishment for the defendant who thought he could travel overseas, sexually abuse young children, rob them of their innocence without consequence and evade detection by U.S. law enforcement authorities,” said Leigh Winchell, special agent in charge of Homeland Security Investigations in the Pacific Northwest.

In his sentencing request memo, Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew Diggs urged the court to send a deterrence message.

“The sentence imposed by the court will give a clear message that United States citizens who are willing to fly across the world to engage in illicit sexual conduct, if apprehended, will face significant punishment at home,” Diggs wrote. “At the same time the court’s sentence gives a message to “would-be” illegal sex tourists, it also gives a reassuring message to foreign countries struggling to combat this type of crime that United States courts are willing to hand out stiff but fair sentences to combat an evil that may not affect the United States as much as it does the foreign nation, which deals most intimately with the societal impacts of the crime.”

Carr addressed the judge prior to his sentencing.

“I’ve ruined my life for a very troubled part of who I am,” Carr said. “I have no one to blame but myself.”

The case was brought by prosecutors as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice.

Led by United States Attorneys’ Offices and the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state and local resources to better locate, apprehend and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the Internet, as well as to identify and rescue victims.

For more information about Project Safe Childhood, visit www.projectsafechildhood.gov.