A Sacramento man is the most recent Northern Californian to receive a lengthy prison sentence for crimes against children.
Michael Carey Clemans was given a life sentence in federal court Tuesday for attempting to buy Filipino children with the intent of raping them.
McGregor Scott is the U.S. Attorney in Sacramento. He says investigators tell him these types of crimes are becoming more prevalent.
"They're worse, they're bigger, they're more egregious, they're more horrific."
He says his office is prosecuting more crimes involving child pornography, assault, and kidnapping in part due to the internet.
"The concept that a man in Sacramento, California, could communicate with a woman in the Phillipines instantaneously, and direct her to go find children and take pictures of children in exactly these positions doing these kinds of things, she does that, sends them back to him and he says, 'OK, I want these three,' and he wires all the money to make that all possible, it's stunning and it's only possible because of the internet," he said.
According to Scott, this type of crime is much easier to perpetrate compared to 25 years ago.
"In the last four calendar years going back to January of 2014, 40 defendants in the Eastern District of California have received sentences of 15 years to life for crimes against children," he said.
He is the seventeenth Northern California man in the last four years to be sentenced to more than 25 years in prison for sex crimes involving children.
Clemans was found guilty or pleaded guilty to seven charges related to his plan, which also included production and receipt of child pornography.
Two people in the Phillipines were sentenced to 15 years for their part in the crime.
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