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Feb 3, 2010

American jailed for sex abuse

PHNOM PENH - A CAMBODIAN court on Wednesday convicted and sentenced an American man to one year in prison for sexually abusing a teenage girl. Phnom Penh Municipal Court Judge Chhay Kong found Harvey Alexander Johnson, 57, guilty of committing indecent acts with a 13-year girl. The court also ordered him to pay US$3,000 (S$4,200) in compensation to the victim's parents and another four million riel (US$1,400) in fines. Johnson, a private English teacher in the capital of Phnom Penh, was arrested in August in his rented house after police received complaints from the girl accusing him of sexual abuse. Judge Chhay Kong ordered Johnson, from Texas, expelled from the country after he completes his prison sentence. The same court last on Thursday sentenced another American man, Michael James Dodd of Washington, DC, who is already serving a 10-year prison term for sexually abusing a teenage girl, to three more years in a separate case. Cambodia has long been a magnet for foreign pedophiles because of poverty and corruption in law enforcement. But the country's police and courts have stepped up action against sex offenders in recent years. -- AP