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Arrested in London in December following his indictment here, Wrenshall arrived at Newark Airport in the custody of U.S. Marshals this afternoon, after fighting extradition for months.
The 18-count Indictment charges him with conspiring to travel in foreign commerce with the intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct with children; aiding and abetting sex tourism; conspiracy to produce child pornography, and the production and distribution of child pornography.
“Given his history and ghastly exploitation of children, Wrenshall is clearly a danger to the community and to children specifically and should be detained [without bail],” Acting U.S. Attorney Ralph J. Marra, Jr. said this afternoon.
Wrenshall was previously convicted in Canada of indecently assaulting several choir boys at a church. After spending some time in a Canadian jail in the late 1990s, he emigrated to Thailand, where, authorities said, he began sex tourism operation.
Federal authorities learned of Wrenshall’s operation following the May 2008 arrest of one of his clients, Wayne Nelson Corliss, of Union City.
From at 2000 to 2002, Wrenshall received fees from Corliss and several U.S. citizens for “access” to prepubescent Thai boys, some as young as 6, the indictment alleges.
Wrenshall even photographer his clients having oral and anal sex with the boys, it says.
Special agents of Immigration and Customs Enforcement worked with their counterparts through ICE attaché offices at the U.S. Embassies in Thailand, Canada and England to track down Wrenshall and arrest him at London’s Heathrow Airport, thanks to a tip.
Unless he accepts a plea deal, Wrenshall will face a mountain of evidence — not to mention potential witnesses for the government.
Corliss, who struck a deal of his own, is to be sentenced on Sept. 21.
Also awaiting sentencing are two other U.S. citizens who went to Thailand and paid Wrenshall so they could engage in sex with young boys, Burgess Lee Burgess and Mitchell Kent Jackson of Alabama.
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