LOS ANGELES, California – A 46-year-old American from Kentucky was sentenced on Friday to 30 years in prison for producing child sexual abuse material (CSAM) involving minors in the Philippines, the US Department of Justice said.
Court documents showed that Robert Maxwell Werner from Walton, Kentucky paid a Filipino individual between February to November 2021 to gain access to minors for the production of CSAM, it said. At the time he was living in the Philippines.
“The individual would sexually abuse these minors and force the minors to engage in sexual acts together for foreign customers like Werner,” the department said in a press release.
“Werner also paid the individual for five in-person meetings with minors at hotels and rental properties in the Philippines. During those meetings, Werner sexually abused multiple minors. In exchange, Werner would provide money, food, clothing, and basic necessities for the minors, who lived in desperate circumstances,” it added.
In a plea agreement, Werner admitted to engaging in sexual acts with at least one minor for the production of CSAM.
He also admitted that he brought back the CSAM to the US and continued to solicit material for at least another month.
The investigation was conducted by the FBI’s Child Exploitation Operational Unit with assistance from the Philippines’ National Bureau of Investigation and the US Department of Justice’s Office of International Affairs.
The case is part of Project Safe Childhood, a US initiative to combat child sexual exploitation and abuse through a coordinated effort involving federal, state, and local agencies to apprehend perpetrators and rescue victims. —KG, GMA Integrated News
