HOUSTON – A 70-year-old Kansas native who was residing in Panama was indicted today and charged with multiple crimes involving sexual conduct with minors in a foreign country, announced U.S. Attorney Kenneth Magidson and Acting Assistant Attorney General Kenneth A. Blanco of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division.
Jebediah Dishman, of Fredonia, Kansas, was arrested in Houston on Nov. 8, 2016, and originally charged by criminal complaint. He later appeared before U.S. Magistrate Judge Mary Milloy who found him to be a flight risk and ordered him into custody. Today, a grand jury in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas indicted him on one count each of engaging in illicit sexual conduct with a minor in a foreign country, production of child pornography, sex trafficking of children and obtaining custody and control of a minor for the purpose of producing sexually explicit visual depictions of the minor.
According to the indictment, from September 2014 through March 2015, Dishman traveled from the United States to the Republic of Indonesia and engaged in illicit sexual conduct with minors. While in Indonesia in February 2015, Dishman allegedly used a minor to produce visual depictions of the minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct. In addition, the indictment alleges that between September 2014 and March 2015, Dishman attempted to recruit and entice minors in the Republic of Indonesia and other countries outside of the territorial jurisdiction of the United States to engage in commercial sex acts.
The FBI is investigating this case with the cooperation of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations. Assistant U.S. Attorney Sherri Zack of the Southern District of Texas and Trial Attorney Elly M. Peirson of the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS) are prosecuting the case.
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. Led by U.S. Attorneys’ Offices and CEOS, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state and local resources to better locate, apprehend and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the Internet, as well as to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.justice.gov/psc.
An indictment is a formal accusation of criminal conduct, not evidence.
A defendant is presumed innocent unless convicted through due process of law.