Magician sentenced to federal prison for sexually exploiting Cambodian children
A children’s magician will be disappearing into a federal prison for six ½ years for fondling children and making porn of them while traveling in Cambodia.
Scott Jameson, 47, of Sutton and also Ireland, was arrested in October 2022 on a single count of child pornography after customs agents uncovered some 100 images of child pornography on his laptop, as well as a roughly 12-second video was allegedly discovered on an external hard drive that captured the genitals of a young boy.
His charges were increased the following month when he was indicted on charges of engaging in illicit sexual conduct in a foreign place and transportation of child pornography. He pleaded guilty to both charges in federal court in Boston last November.
On Thursday, U.S. District Court Judge Richard G. Stearns sentenced Jameson to 78 months — or six ½ years — in federal prison to be followed by five years of supervised release. Jameson will also have to pay $20,000 in special assessments.
“Scott Jameson thought that by traveling overseas to Cambodia in order to sexually exploit children, he could get away with it. He was wrong,” said acting U.S. Attorney Joshua Levy. “Sexual exploitation of children is unconscionable, regardless of where the victims live. Our office works with international authorities regularly to make sure that individuals like Mr. Jameson are held accountable for their criminal conduct.”
Authorities were first made aware of Jameson’s overseas wrongdoing when members of the Cambodian organization Action Pour Les Enfants, or APLE, contacted FBI agents stationed in their country in February 2022 and told them that Jameson “was engaged in inappropriate behavior and potential sexual exploitation of minors in Kratie, Cambodia,” according to an FBI affidavit filed in the case.
That behavior included giving gifts and money to the families of small children and then sleeping with the children. And it wasn’t just once, as APLE reported to the FBI that Jameson had traveled from Boston to Cambodia again in August 2022. It was upon his return the next month that customs agents encountered him at Logan International Airport in Boston and found the illicit materials.
Jameson performed across New England for 20 years a high-tech brand of magic for children as young as kindergarten and as old as eighth grade. He wrote on his website that his act made use of his disparate “training in gymnastics, dance, acting, and even microchip programming.”
He employed similar skills in teaching Cambodian children English during his travels to the southeast Asian country, he wrote.
Members of the public who have questions, concerns or information regarding this case should call 617-748-3274, federal prosecutors say.