May 29, 2020
A Philippine court sentenced American David Timothy Deakin, 55, to life in prison on Tuesday. Deakin sexually exploited Filipino children by using webcams to live stream sex shows, made videos, he also took pictures of children and sold them to other pedophiles all over the world, according to ABC News.
Aside from Deakin’s life sentence, he was also ordered to pay a court fine of $2 million Filipino Pesos ($40,000 USD) and pay another $500,000 Filipino Pesos ($10,000 USD) to each of his victims for “moral damages” and was also ordered to pay an additional $100,000 Filipino Pesos ($2,000 USD) for civil indemnity for his crimes, according to Rappler.
The National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) with additional information and evidence provided by the FBI arrested Deakin at a house he rented in Angeles City back in 2017. There, authorities discovered hard drives containing child pornography made by Deakin, children’s underwear, bondage cuffs, fetish ropes, sex toys, and drugs.
The NBI also rescued two girls on site, aged 9 and 11, who stayed at the house with Deakin. David Timothy Deakin was originally from Peoria, Illinois, and moved to the Philippines back in 2000. It took authorities 17 years to finally discover the magnitude of the damage he’s inflicted on countless children.
This latest case comes as no surprise to Filipino authorities who acknowledged the Philippines has become a hotbed for online child sexual exploitation. Cases have increased sharply over the years and parents in some regions of the country live in extreme poverty and actually resort to allowing their children to be exploited by pedophiles all over the world for money.
According to the IJM (International Justice Mission) “The estimated prevalence rate of internet-based child sexual exploitation in the Philippines more than tripled – from 43 out of every 10,000 Internet Protocol (IP) addresses used for child sexual exploitation in 2014 to 149 out of every 10,000 in 2017.”
Feature Images via IMJ