Kansas man pleads guilty to sex crimes involving children

A 71-year-old Fredonia man has pleaded guilty to sex crimes involving children - including sex trafficking - federal authorities announced on Friday.

Jebediah Dishman, who has been living in Panama, admitted using sexually explicit depictions of a minor for importation into the United States, Acting Assistant Attorney General John Cronan said in a prepared statement.

Dishman is scheduled to be sentenced on July 6. He was arrested in Houston on Nov. 8, 2016, and indicted the following February 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.

As part of a plea agreement, Cronan said, Dishman admitted that he began a six-month trip to several countries in Southeast Asia in 2014. While he was in Indonesia. a tourist observed Dishman engaging in suspicious interactions with minors, performing sex acts while watching minors and using a tablet to take photographs of a three-year-old boy.

The tourist confronted Dishman, seized his tablet and turned it over to local authorities, according to the plea agreement. When reviewing the tablet later, U.S. authorities discovered sexually explicit images of minors, including of the German child, as well as Internet searches indicating an interest in the sex trafficking of minors in Southeast Asia.

The FBI is investigating the case with the cooperation of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Homeland Security Investigations, Cronan said.

This story was originally published April 6, 2018 at 6:23 PM with the headline "Kansas man pleads guilty to sex crimes involving children."