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Seized by U.S. government agents, Treverson Roberts, 27, pleaded guilty to the crime in federal court in Brooklyn on Monday in a bid for leniency.
Roberts certainly won't get the kind of leniency he got in Grenada. The maximum penalty here is 30 years.
The dual U.S. and Grenadian citizen -- who lives in Brooklyn -- will also have to serve out just about all of his eventual sentence. There's no parole in the U.S. federal prison system.
Roberts travelled to his native country in October 2019 to be ordained as a minister. While there, he forced a boy who'd been left in his care to pleasure him orally, authorities in the Eastern U.S. District of New York said.
Roberts begged forgiveness from the boy's mother in assorted text messages while pleading guilty to the crime in Grenada. A judge on the Caribbean island country fined him $1,500 and ordered Roberts to pay $600 to cover therapy for the victim.
That's it.
Those outraged by the "penalty" appealed to U.S. authorities. They noted that Roberts's attorney is a former member of Grenada's Parliament and is married to its current legal affairs minister.
One group in particular, Grenadian Women Inc., filed complaints with federal authorities in New York City.
The case turned out to be a perfect fit Project Safe Childhood, a U.S. Department of Justice initiative to fight child sexual exploitation and abuse.
The New York Child Exploitation Investigations Unit of Homeland Security Investigations assembled a case with assistance from the HSI Caribbean Attaché Office and the Royal Grenada Police Force, Assistant Attorney General Kenneth A. Polite Jr. of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, U.S. Attorney Breon Peace for the Eastern District of New York and Acting Special Agent in Charge Rick J. Patel for Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) New York said in a joint announcement Monday.
Trial Attorney Charles Schmitz of the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS) and Assistant U.S. Attorney Laura Zuckerwise for Eastern District of New York are prosecuting the case.
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