EUGENE, Ore. — A missionary worker from Coos Bay has been returned to the United States to be prosecuted on an accusation that he molested a boy while in Cambodia.
Daniel Johnson, 36, is scheduled to be arraigned Monday in U.S. District Court in Eugene. He was lodged in a Eugene jail this week after authorities in Cambodia handed him over to FBI agents, The Register-Guard newspaper reported.
A federal grand jury indicted Johnson on Dec. 10 on a charge of engaging in illicit sexual conduct in a foreign place. The indictment arrived as Johnson was finishing a one-year prison sentence in Cambodia for sexually abusing boys in his care at an orphanage.
A 2003 federal law aimed at preventing child abuse made it a crime for any U.S. citizen to have illegal sexual contact with a minor in a foreign country. The offense carries a maximum prison sentence of 30 years upon conviction.
The indictment unsealed Wednesday alleges Johnson sexually abused an underage boy while overseas between November 2005 and October 2006.
Authorities have not said whether the alleged victim is one of the children Johnson was convicted of molesting in Cambodia.
FBI spokeswoman Jennifer Adams declined to comment on the case. It’s unclear if Johnson has an attorney or will have a public defender assigned to him Monday.
The anti-pedophile group Action pour les Enfants, which is based in Cambodia, said Johnson had worked as a Christian missionary in the Southeast Asian country for about a decade.
The news release states that although the group is disappointed with Johnson’s “light sentence in Cambodia,” the government’s decision to deport Johnson “is a clear signal and helps serve as deterrent for other criminals that Cambodia will not allow such crimes.”
More than a decade ago, Johnson was accused in Oregon of molesting three children in his sister’s care. Lincoln County prosecutors dismissed charges after investigators began to doubt the alleged victims’ statements, according to a 2003 article in the Yamhill Valley News-Register.
The article described Johnson as a part-time missionary and said he was arrested at an airport upon returning from a trip to Asia.
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