American man sentenced to 50 years in prison for sexually abusing multiple Filipino girls

WSBTV.com News Staff
·2 min read

A man who sexually abused multiple Filipino girls was sentenced in Atlanta to 50 years in prison for producing child pornography overseas and transporting the material to the United States.

Over the course of three years, Stephen Gordon Grimes recorded videos of his sexual abuse of girls as young as four years old, the United States Attorney’s Office said.

“Grimes exploited poverty in the Philippines to gain access to multiple young girls,” said U.S. Attorney Ryan K. Buchanan. “He sexually abused these children for multiple years and recorded the crimes. His sentence rightly reflects the harm that he inflicted on these children.”

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According to Buchanan, information presented in court revealed that around 2009 Grimes met two Filipino women, who were sisters, in an online chat room.

The women agreed to arrange for Grimes to sexually exploit young girls in the Philippines, including the children of one of the women.

Grimes worked as a civilian contractor on a Navy ship and often traveled to the Philippines at the end of each contract.

Grimes paid one of the women $500 a month for exclusive access to his child victims while he was in the Philippines.

From at least February 2016 until May 2019, Grimes used a video camera to record his sexual abuse of Filipino girls between the ages of four and 13 years.

He also used a cell phone camera to record his assault.

On September 29, 2020, special agents with Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) seized Grimes’ computers, cell phone, and other electronic devices as he traveled from South Korea to Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport.

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Analysis of these items revealed he had produced 340 videos and 650 images of his abuse of Filipino girls.

Investigators determined he downloaded 523 videos and 4,470 images of child pornography from the internet onto his computer.

After his arrest, HSI special agents undertook an operation that led to the rescue of the girls whom he had abused.

The operation resulted in the local prosecution of the two women who conspired with Grimes.

Grimes, of Lompoc, California, was found guilty by a jury on April 7, 2023, of multiple counts of producing child pornography outside the United States, attempting to transport child pornography, and possessing child pornography.

He was sentenced to 50 years in prison to be followed by a lifetime term of supervised release.

The possibility of parole does not exist in the federal prison system.

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