Florida man gets 330-year sentence for recording the rape of Filipino children

Florida
David Paul Lynch, aged 56, made numerous visits to the Philippines between 2005 and 2016 where he filmed himself sexually abusing children. Picture courtesy of the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office.

A Florida man has been sentenced to 330 years in federal prison for filming himself raping Filipino children.

As we reported in October, David Paul Lynch, aged 56, was found guilty of ‘travelling with the intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct’ and for ‘possessing, receiving, and producing child pornography’.

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The Department of Justice said Lynch would communicate online with people in the Philippines to organise children for him to abuse.

During his numerous trips, between 2005 and 2016, Lynch would have sex with the children and record the abuse, producing child pornography of at least three Filipino children. The court was not told whether his victims were male or female, nor were their ages given.

FBI agents arrested Lynch in San Francisco on December 30, 2016, as he attempted to board a flight to the Philippines.

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While searching his home in Venice, FBI agents located dozens of self-produced images and videos of child sexual abuse from his trips, as well as emails soliciting child pornography of other Filipino children.

At his sentencing in Tampa yesterday (Friday, February 23), US District Judge Virginia M Hernandez Covington ordered Lynch to forfeit his home in Venice, as well as his computers and other electronic devices.

As part of the investigation, the Bradenton Police Department and the Sarasota Police Department worked alongside the FBI, US Customs and Border Protection and the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations.

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The case was conducted as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in 2006 to “combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse”.

It is not known if Lynch’s contacts in the Philippines have been identified or prosecuted.

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