May 6, βDavid Wendel Thompson, who was nabbed by US law enforcement authorities in Miami while trying to fly to Belize, has been sentenced to 15 years in Florida, USA, after having pleaded guilty to enticing two Belizean minors, ages 13 and 15, via Facebook. He had apparently been in contact with the Belizean girls between December and February He took a flight to Belize on March 14, , but was denied entry when he got here, and US law enforcement personnel arrested him when he returned to Miami.
When US law enforcement searched his checked bag, they reportedly found condoms, a drug for erectile dysfunction, two brand new computer tablets said to be gifts for the minors and fliers for a hotel in Belize. Thompson, 49, had been working as a social studies teacher at a primary school in Florida. Months before he began communicating with the Belizean minors online, he had also married a young Belizean woman from southern Belize.
According to The Tampa Tribune, Thompson said in court Wednesday upon his sentencing that he never acted inappropriately towards any child when he was a teacher, and he claimed he never would have acted on his chats with the girls in Belize. However, Assistant U. Attorney Jennifer Peresie said Thompson was interviewed three times by Homeland Security agentsβonce at the airport in Miami on his way to Belize, once in Belize and upon his return to Miamiβand he had never before claimed this was only fantasy.
Instead, she said, he justified his plans and told agents it was legal in Belize to have sex with girls as young as 16, but that he planned only to have sex with year-olds. Iris introduced them to Thompson on Facebook.
Peresie claimed that the conversations Thompson had with the two victims were graphic, and he also tried to persuade one of them to send him photographs of her genital area. ICE also said that Thomspon could face a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years and a maximum penalty of life in prison if convicted. Media reports in the US said that Thompson had been in Belize 9 times since He had apparently picked up enough of the local lingo, Kriol, to take on the persona of a Belizean teen girl online.
