Jason Jayavarman, 45, had sex with 13-and 14-year-old girls.
AB Wire
NEW YORK: Jason Jayavarman, 45, an Anchorage, Alaska, Indian American entrepreneur was convicted on Tuesday for sexually exploiting children in Cambodia over the course of four years and attempting to arrange a child sex tourism trip for himself and others in that country.
Jayavarman, 45, the owner of Jason’s International Youth Hostel, was convicted of sexual exploitation of children and attempted travel with the intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct in a foreign place.
A sentencing hearing will take place before U.S. District Court Judge Sharon L. Gleason of the District of Alaska, and will be scheduled at a later date. Jayavarman remains in custody pending sentencing.
The evidence presented at trial established that Jayavarman had produced multiple videos of himself engaging in sexual acts with a child in Cambodia over the course of 12 trips between 2010 and his arrest in 2013. Jayavarman then transported the recordings back to the United States.
The evidence also detailed a trip that Jayavarman had planned for himself and others to Cambodia for the purpose of engaging in sexual activity with children as young as 12 years old. Unbeknownst to Jayavarman, one of the individuals was an undercover FBI agent. According to the evidence presented at trial, Jayavarman explained to the undercover agent how to groom a child for sex, how to avoid law enforcement and how to record high quality “mementos” of the sexual activity.
Jayavarman’s child exploitation activities came to light following a concerned citizen’s anonymous tip.
The Alaska Dispatch News reported in August, 2013 that Jayavarman admitted to sexually abusing 13 and 14-year-old girls, starting in 2009.
In a recorded phone conversation on April 23, Jayavarman told an undercover FBI employee that he liked “young and fresh” girls for sex. Jayavarman also said he would record videos of himself sexually abusing the girls and that he had made videos in the United States, too.
The undercover investigator posed as someone interested in a trip abroad to commit such sex acts and asked if Jayavarman would be able to “arrange for a child to be delivered to him and his friends.” Jayavarman said he could.
“Jayavarman continued by telling the (investigator) the proper way to groom a child so as not to create problems with her family or the authorities in Cambodia,” the charges say, reported the News in that report. “Jayavarman explained that he knew someone who could (get) girls as young as 12 or 13 years old.”
The investigator flew to Anchorage to meet with Jayavarman in a hotel room.
Jayavarman said the girls he could get were Vietnamese and told the investigator not to worry about the Cambodian police. If the police questioned anything, Jayavarman said, “give them $10 and they will go away.”
He went on to discuss the best ways to make video “mementos” of the sex, including what he thought was the best camera equipment and ways to store the video and digital images.
In July, the undercover investigator and Jayavarman started planning their trip in earnest, deciding to leave Aug. 21. Jayavarman said he would get himself a girl and wanted to visit land he said he owns in Cambodia.
“(The investigator said) they were interested in young girls ages 11 or 12 and asked if this would be OK. Jayavarman stated they would find the young girls and reminded the (investigator) that this was private business and should not be talked about in public.”
According to the charges, agents at his hostel seized various forms of digital media, a camera and a camcorder. In the digital files, they found “numerous” videos of Jayavarman having sex with underage girls.
In August of 2013, Newsminer.com reported that defense attorney Vikram N. Chaobal told The Associated Press that Jayavarman will plead not guilty.
2 Comments
I think you ought to do more research before posting incorrect information online. I was on the jury.
He isn’t Indian. He’s a Cambodian with dual citizenship.