February 1, 2011
NEW YORK (AFP) - A US federal judge on Monday sentenced a 64 -year-old Canadian man to 25 years in prison for the "monstrous conduct" of running a brothel in Thailand where he and American men had sex with Thai boys.
John Wrenshall had admitted in 2009 that as early as January 2000, he arranged trips to his home during which pedophiles from the United States and elsewhere paid him to engage in sex acts with Thai boys as young as four years old, according to a statement by Paul Fishman, the US Attorney for the state of New Jersey.
"Wrenshall created a place where innocent children were sexually brutalized as a vacation pastime," Fishman said.
"Children represent what is best in us, and Wrenshall's monstrous conduct represents the worst. It is fitting that a man who has condemned children to live with unimaginable scars for his pleasure and profit should spend decades of his own life in a prison cell."
Wrenshall, arrested in late 2008 at London's Heathrow Airport and extradited to the United States in 2009, pleaded guilty in Newark federal court to conspiracy to engage in sex tourism, conspiracy to produce child pornography, and distribution of child pornography.
He was sentenced Monday by that court's judge, Dennis Cavanaugh.
Wrenshall drew the attention of US authorities when in 2008 Interpol took the almost unprecedented step of releasing a photo of a suspected child predator in an effort to uncover his identity.
The image was quickly identified by individuals as that of Wayne Corliss, a man US officials learned had traveled to Wrenshall's home to engage in illegal sex acts with minor boys. Corliss was arrested in New Jersey and is serving a 20-year prison term.
Two other American clients of Wrenshall, Burgess Lee Burgess and Mitchell Jackson, have pleaded guilty to sex tourism and were each sentenced to six and a half years in prison.
