Former US Missionary Sentenced To 40 Years For Child Sex Case

MIAMI, FL — A former U.S. missionary to Haiti has been sentenced to 40 years in prison for engaging in child sex tourism in the orphanage he ran for six years in the impoverished nation. Daniel John Pye, who has lived in Florida, Arkansas and Texas at various times, was sentenced in a Miami courtroom on Wednesday. In addition to the prison term, U.S. District Judge Ursula Ungaro ordered him to serve 25 years of supervised release.

The sentence was announced by U.S. Attorney Benjamin G. Greenberg in Miami and Special Agent in Charge Mark Selby of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Homeland Security Investigations Miami Field Office.

"During his time operating the orphanage, Pye would regularly sexually abuse the female residents of his orphanage, including girls as young as six-years-old," according to federal prosecutors. "As described by the Haitian victims during trial, Pye routinely sexually abuse(d) his victims both at the orphanage and while at the beach."

Prosecutors said that Pye operated the orphanage between 2006 and 2012. He was convicted by a federal jury in November of three counts of traveling in foreign commerce with the purpose of engaging in illicit sexual conduct with a minor.

Prosecutors said he has lived in the Bradenton and Fort Lauderdale areas of Florida as well as the Liberty Hill and Texarkana areas of Texas; and the Ashdown area of Arkansas. The orphanage was located in Jacmel, Haiti.

"The orphanage provided shelter, clothing, food, and school tuition to children without families and to children whose families could not afford to feed or otherwise support their children," federal prosecutors explained. "Pye obtained financial support for the orphanage through his connections with numerous religious organizations and other nonprofit groups in the United States."

The case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Ben Widlanski and Ilham Hosseini.

Photo courtesy Wilke D. Ferguson Jr. Federal Courthouse in Miami