A 57-year-old California man who worked as an airline pilot has been convicted of traveling to the Philippines to have sex with minors.
Michael Carey Clemans was found guilty on Tuesday by a federal jury in Sacramento of attempted travel and travel with intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct, conspiracy to travel with intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct and buying of children, according to a U.S. Attorney’s Office news release.
He pleaded guilty to three additional counts on his first day of the trial including conspiracy to produce child pornography, attempted production and production of child pornography, and receipt of child pornography.
Clemans conspired with a woman in the Philippines to produce child pornography beginning in 2014, according to court documents.
Michael Clemans, a 57-year-old California man who worked as an airline pilot, has been convicted of traveling to the Philippines to have sex with minors (file above)
At the time he was temporarily living in Bangkok where he worked as an airline pilot.
Clemans returned to his Sacramento home in April 2015 and continued the overseas conspiracy using his online Yahoo email account to communicat with the Filipino woman.
Authorities say he discussed numerous strategies to obtain minor girls who he could rape and told the woman how to find vulnerable youth – directing her towards orphans and typhoon victims who were young as seven years old.
Clemans paid the Filipino woman roughly $6,000 for her to purchase photographic equipment and find locations where they could shoot sexually explicit photos of the victims.
The pilot gave the woman specific instructions on how to photograph the children so he could then determine which victim he would travel to the country to rape, authorities say.
He was found guilty by in Sacramento of attempted travel and travel with intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct, conspiracy to travel with intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct and buying of children. He also conspired from his Sacramento home (above) to commit crimes
Clemans also paid a co-conspirator to obtain temporary custody of the children and produce pornography for him in the Philippines on some occasions.
During the trial prosecutors presented evidence showing that Clemans participated in another scheme with other individuals in November 2013 where he traveled from the U.S. to Manila to engage in sexual conduct with minors after requesting pornographic images of them.
Clemans will be sentenced on December 12 by U.S. District Judge John A. Mendez.
He faces a mandatory minimum sentence of 30 years in prison for the charge of ‘buying children,’ a maximum statutory penalty of life in prison and a $250,000 fine, authorities say.
It’s unclear what airline company he flew planes for.
The case was brought as part of the Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched by the by the Department of Justice in 2006 to combat child exploitation and abuse.
Two Filipino women, Lyan Tandeg and Shellina Atad, were arrested back in November 2015 and charged with certified trafficking and syndicated little one pornography, Philippine News Now reported.
The two women supplied children from eight to 11 years old for sex with foreigners for 3,000 pesos an evening.
They were busted by an undercover broker during a sting operation at an Angeles City espresso store.