Oregon Man Sentenced to Life in Prison for Sexually Abusing Children at Orphanage in Cambodia

Johnson systematically and repeatedly molested children who lived at an unlicensed orphanage he started and ran in Phnom Penh, Cambodia

(EUGENE, Ore.) - 40-year old Daniel Stephen Johnson, of Coos Bay, Oregon, was sentenced to life in federal prison on January 18th for repeatedly sexually abusing children who lived at an orphanage operated by the defendant in Cambodia.

In a jury trial ending on May 16, 2018, Johnson was convicted on six counts of engaging in illicit sexual conduct in a foreign place and one count each of travel with intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct and aggravated sexual assault with a child.

He was sentenced to 30 years in prison on each count of illicit sexual conduct in a foreign place, 30 years for traveling with the intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct, and life in prison for aggravated sexual assault with children. The sentences for engaging in illicit sexual conduct in a foreign place will run consecutively.

According to court documents and information shared during trial, between November 2005 and his arrest in December 2013, Johnson systematically and repeatedly molested children who lived at an unlicensed orphanage he started and ran in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

Johnson funded the orphanage by soliciting donations from church groups in Oregon, California, Texas and elsewhere. Ten Cambodian victims—who ranged in age from seven to 18 years old at the time of abuse—have disclosed Johnson’s abuse or attempted abuse.

Victims described a pattern of molestation that includes, among other things, Johnson making them perform oral sex on him and anally raping them.

Years prior, according to a 2003 article in the News-Register, the Lincoln County district attorney’s office had charged Johnson in 2000-2001 with six counts of sex abuse and sodomy committed against three children. The charges were later dropped, due to "doubt regarding the reliability of testimony from the boys".

At the orphanage, multiple victims said they were, on numerous occasions, awoken to Johnson abusing them. Following the abuse, Johnson would sometimes provide his impoverished victims with small amounts of money or food. On one occasion, Johnson gave a victim the equivalent of $2.50 in Cambodian currency.

In 2013, a warrant was issued for Johnson’s arrest on an unrelated case by officials in Lincoln County, Oregon. Local law enforcement officers worked with the FBI to locate Johnson overseas. The FBI in turn worked with the U.S. Department of State to revoke Johnson’s passport based on the Oregon warrant.

Through the work of the FBI, Action Pour Les Enfants, a non-governmental organization dedicated to ending child sexual abuse and exploitation in Cambodia, and the Cambodian National Police (CNP), Johnson was located in Phnom Penh.

On December 9, 2013, CNP arrested Johnson. Based on disclosures made by children at the orphanage, Cambodian officials charged Johnson and detained him pending trial.

In May 2014, Johnson was convicted by a Cambodian judge of sexually abusing five underage boys in the care of an orphanage he ran in Phnom Penh and sentenced to a year in prison.

In December, 2014, the "American missionary" was deported to the U.S. Johnson was handed over by the Interior Ministry’s immigration department to an FBI attache in Phnom Penh at the request of the U.S. Embassy and he was escorted back to the U.S. Johnson had lived in Cambodia for more than a decade and would never be allowed to return.

Based on the sexual-abuse allegations against him, the FBI undertook a lengthy investigation of Johnson. During the course of their investigation, agents interviewed more than a dozen children and adults who had resided at the orphanage.

Many of the interviews were audio- and video-taped and, in several instances, conducted in Cambodia by trained child-forensic interviewers. Some victims were interviewed multiple times before disclosing Johnson’s abuse.

Johnson was indicted by a federal grand jury in Eugene, Oregon on December 20, 2014 on one count of engaging in illicit sexual conduct in a foreign place. Seven additional charges were added by superseding indictment on May 17, 2017.

While in custody awaiting trial, Johnson made multiple efforts to tamper with witnesses and obstruct justice.

Johnson contacted his victims online, encouraging them to lie and offering money and gifts. One message, sent via his relative’s Facebook account to an adult in Cambodia, discussed visiting a victim’s family and encouraging them to convince the victim to retract their statement, potentially in exchange for $10,000. Another message explains the need for a victim to say they were under duress and “pushed by police” to thumbprint a document.

This case was investigated by the FBI with the assistance of the Toledo, Oregon Police Department. It was prosecuted by Jeffrey S. Sweet and Ravi Sinha, Assistant U.S. Attorneys for the District of Oregon, and Lauren E. Britsch, Trial Attorney for the Justice Department’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section. Amy E. Potter, Assistant U.S. Attorney for the District of Oregon, assisted with the prosecution.

This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse.

Launched in May 2006 by the U.S. Department of Justice and led by United States Attorneys’ Offices and the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS), Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to better locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the Internet, as well as to identify and rescue victims.