EUGENE, Ore. – A Coos Bay man who started an unlicensed orphanage in Cambodia where he “systematically and repeatedly molested children” will spend the rest of his life in federal prison, the U.S. Attorney for Oregon says.
A judge sentenced 40-year-old Daniel Stephen Johnson to 30 years behind bar on each of 6 counts of engaging in illicit sexual conduct in a foreign place. Those sentences are to be served consecutively, one after another.
The judge also sentenced Johnson to 30 years for traveling with the intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct, and to life in prison for aggravated sexual assault with children.
The U.S. Attorney for Oregon says that “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.
The victims told investigators they sometimes awoke to find Johnson abusing them.
“Following the abuse, Johnson would sometimes provide his impoverished victims with small amounts of money or food,” according to the U.S. Attorney for Oregon. “On one occasion, Johnson gave a victim the equivalent of $2.50 in Cambodian currency.”
Johnson was brought to justice after a warrant was issued for his arrest in Lincoln County in 2013 in an unrelated case.
The Cambodian National Police arrested him later that year.
“Based on disclosures made by children at the orphanage, Cambodian officials charged Johnson and detained him pending trial,” according to the U.S. Attorney. “In May 2014, Johnson was convicted by a Cambodian judge of performing indecent acts on one or more children at the orphanage and sentenced to a year in prison. Following his release from prison, Johnson was escorted back to the U.S. by the FBI.”
Johnson was indicted by a federal grand jury in Eugene in December 2014 on one count of engaging in illicit sexual conduct in a foreign place. Seven additional charges were added in May 2017.
According to the U.S. Attorney for Oregon:
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.
