Ex-U.S. serviceman gets 22 years for sex-trafficking kids in PH

TACOMA, Washington  – A former Staff Sergeant stationed at Joint Base Lewis-McChord was sentenced to 22 years in prison for sex trafficking children, producing images of child sexual abuse, and traveling to the Philippines to sexually abuse children.

Moeun Yoeun will be registered as a sex offender after serving 22 years in prison. LMDC

The U.S. District Court in Tacoma on Feb. 16 sentenced Moeun Yoeun, 40, of Steilacoom, Washington, who pleaded guilty in August 2022 and admitted that he threatened young girls in the Philippines with death if they refused his sexual assaults.

At the sentencing hearing U.S. District Judge Benjamin H. Settle called the crimes “vicious, heinous, and cruel.”

“Mr. Yoeun weaponized his position of trust as a noncommissioned officer in the United States Army, to sexually exploit and cause irreversible trauma to impoverished girls in the Philippines,” said U.S. Attorney Nick Brown.  “He cruelly threatened their lives if they tried to flee from his violent sexual assaults.  This lengthy sentence is necessary to deter Mr. Yoeun and others who prey on children.”

In his plea agreement, Yoeun admitted that over several years he used adult and child residents of the Philippines to recruit more than a dozen other children to produce pornography.

Yoeun further admitted to traveling to the Philippines and engaging in sexual acts with at least 6 children in exchange for nominal amounts of money.

Prosecutors cited numerous studies showing the long-term damage suffered by child sex abuse victims, concluding, ”[f]urther research only confirmed and expanded upon this emerging understanding of these insidious effects of childhood sexual trauma. Studies now tell us that the numerous child victims in this case, as a direct consequence of the Defendant’s violent sexual attacks, will face an elevated risk of alcohol abuse, illicit drug use, sexual promiscuity, and suicide.”

Yoeun will be required to register as a sex offender after he is released from prison and will be on federal supervision for 15 years.

The FBI and U.S. Army CID, with the assistance of the Philippine National Police, investigated this case as part of the South Sound Child Exploitation Task Force. The case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorneys Grady J. Leupold and Matthew P. Hampton.

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 Department of Justice.