Oxnard man faces 210-year sentence for sexually abusing Cambodian girls

A prosecutor offered her a wooden footstool to stand on so she could better see the judge, but the girl declined.

She eyed the defendant, a retired U.S. Marine captain who had done unspeakable things to her and six other girls. He was seated just a few feet away with a smirk on his face.

The girl, 14, rocked back and forth, seeming to summon the courage to speak, and then, in a voice so faint it could barely be heard, she did.

"I don't want any other children to be like us," she told U.S. District Court Judge Dale S. Fischer through a translator. "Please don't allow this to happen again."

The girl spoke during a sentencing hearing for Michael Joseph Pepe, 53, of Oxnard. Pepe was convicted in May of having sex with seven Cambodian girls age 9 to 12. He faces a maximum sentence of 210 years in federal prison.

Pepe was working as a teacher in Cambodia when he hired a prostitute to procure the children from their families, according to testimony in the three-week trial. The victims, six of whom were flown to the United States to testify, said Pepe drugged, bound, beat and raped them in his compound in Phnom Penh, the Cambodian capital. In addition to the victims' testimony, prosecutors showed jurors restraints, sedatives and homemade child pornography seized by Cambodian National Police during a raid of Pepe's residence in 2006.

Cambodian police began investigating Pepe after receiving complaints of suspected child sexual abuse in the house where he lived. U.S. authorities later joined the investigation at the request of their Cambodian counterparts.

All of the victims were in court Thursday, but it took some coaxing from Fischer to get them to speak.

"I don't want you to be afraid," the judge told the girls, one of whom clutched a fluffy pink teddy bear. "This is a safe place."

Then, one after another, they got up and said a few words. Some stole nervous glances at Pepe as they spoke.

"What he did to me, it's very painful," said one girl in a striped dress. Another, with long black hair and a sweet voice, told the judge: "I just want to say thank you that you helped me find justice."

Social workers who are helping to care for the girls in Cambodia told Fischer the youngsters probably would be traumatized for the rest of their lives, particularly in a culture in which victims of sexual abuse are stigmatized.