California Pilot Sentenced to Life in Prison For Buying Children to Rape Them

Michael Carey Clemans, 57, of Sacramento was sentenced to life in prison for traveling to the Philippines to rape underage girls as young as seven. He also conspired to produce child pornography involving children as young as seven. Investigators found some 27,000 child pornography images.

According to Justice Department and FBI releases, Clemans traveled to Manila in November 2013 to have sex with minors, including an 11-year-old girl. He previously requested and received pornographic images of the girls he intended to rape.

Then, beginning in June 2014, Clemans conspired with a woman in the Philippines to produce child pornography. At the time, he lived in Bangkok and worked as an airline pilot.

In April 2015, he returned to Sacramento and used a computer at his parent’s house and his Yahoo account to chat with the Filipino woman and continue the conspiracy.

He instructed the woman how to get vulnerable children for the pornography scheme, intending to, based on the pictures, pick the ones he wanted to rape.

“[T]hat is the reason i mentioned orphanages or runaways or abandoned girls from the typhoons,” he wrote, according to Fox 40. “[I] am looking for girls that are homeless that will not argue and will have no obligation but to have sex.”

He paid the woman nearly $6,000 so she could buy photographic equipment and find discreet locations to conduct sexually explicit photo shoots of the victims. One of the girls was seven years old.

“[I] want to be able to get my photos and arrange sex with the underage girls,” he wrote. [I] do not want you or me to get into trouble so we have to be very very careful.”

He also repeatedly paid a co-conspirator to obtain temporary custody of the children and produce child pornography for him.

He was especially interested in very young virgins.

U.S. District Judge John Mendez sentenced Clemans on Tuesday, Jan. 23, after a federal jury found Clemans guilty on Sept. 5, 2017, of buying children, attempted travel and travel with intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct, and conspiracy to travel with intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct. On the first day of trial, Clemans pleaded guilty to three additional counts: conspiracy to produce child pornography, attempted production and production of child pornography, and receipt of child pornography.

The investigation was conducted by the FBI and the Philippine National Bureau of Investigation.

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